Furioso
by Nienna3791
Summary: After the events of Agitato, Alex Rider is posing as an exchange history student to testify in the American Federal Court system against the rogue agent who tried to kill him. When an international crisis reveals one corpse and two conspiracies, Alex falls into the politics of law enforcement to solve a mystery and a murder before his protection runs out - after MI6 deserts him.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hello! I'm back!

I know I said this would be up by January, but I also assumed that I would have time to write between December and January, which didn't quite work out.

Well, here is the second installment in the _Agitato_ universe, featuring Alex, his American ghosts, some new characters, and an international crisis. Just another day in the life of a semi-legal MI6 operative, right?

* * *

No matter what anyone else said, Alex Rider was not getting off that plane.

It'll be fun, they said.

Go to America, they said.

It's your civic duty, they said.

Well, what _the_ _y_ \- which referred to K Unit, Danielle, Tom, and Clara- neglected to consider was that in late November, Washington D.C. was miserable.

The passengers who had already disembarked were standing around waiting for luggage delivery with their hands jammed into their coat pockets and feet restlessly stomping against the ground. Clouds of vapor puffed in front of their lips as the air chilled their breath.

Alex slid down in his seat.

Maybe no one would notice if he just -

"Excuse me, sir?"

Crap.

Alex reluctantly glanced over at the flight attendant, who hovered over him with a vacant look of polite concern. She bleached her hair - it was drying, ends splitting - and, from the pale skin around one of the fingers on her left hand, had recently divorced. Perhaps it was the best decision not to aggravate her, even if he ended up freezing to death before his ride arrived.

"Sorry," he said with as polite a tone as he could muster. "I'm a bit tired."

"The turbulence was murder," she replied, moving out of his way as he stood up into the aisle and pulled his suitcase down from the overhead compartment.

"Yeah. Can't be avoided, though, can it?" He yanked up his backpack from under the seat in front of his and stacked it on his suitcase before wheeling both down the aisle.

"Baggage claim is inside if you don't want to wait in the cold."

He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her. "This is all I've got."

Her eyebrows quirked. "Short trip?"

"No," he replied honestly. "I don't have much stuff."

"Well, have fun."

"Thanks."

His suitcase clattered down the stairs behind him and grated over the tarmac. It had wheels, but they had broken somewhere between London and Berlin. Alex stifled a yawn as he wedged open the door into Dulles Airport; he was tired - no, exhausted. He felt dead on his feet, and on top of flights in three time zones, his stomach was beginning to hurt. The bullet wound was acting up.

Maybe it was because of the cold.

Y _ou've endured worse,_ he thought, but automatically dismissed the denial.

The problem with being an internationally famous spy in (almost) top physical and mental condition was that he couldn't distract himself from reality.

He couldn't even try.

He wasn't cold, he thought bitterly as he hurried inside towards customs, the file of papers he had filled out clenched in his fist.

He just didn't want to be in America.

He didn't particularly want to be anywhere at all.

"Sir?" asked the man at the first customs desk. "Papers?"

Alex silently handed over the wrinkled ones in his hand. The man glanced them over and turned to his computer, entering some information onto a virtual form. Then a window popped up over the form and, after a few seconds, the operator turned back to Alex.

"Says here you're cleared."

"Thanks," Alex said. The nice thing about working for an international intelligence agency was not standing in line. Honestly, that was the only nice thing. Alex picked up his suitcase and cut through the rest of the customs line, getting jealous glances from the other international passengers, and entered the pickup terminal.

With a heavy sigh, Alex scanned the sparse crowd inside for anyone who looked like a Mr. Randal Blakemore from the Central Intelligence Agency, but no one particularly stood out.

He sat down on one of the plastic chairs and checked his phone.

He had four new messages from Danielle, his foster-something-sister, each a different picture of Ben Daniels' DIY renovations. From the apparent state of the kitchen plumbing, Alex guessed that Ben, aka Fox, would be calling a plumber soon if his wife didn't beat him to it.

Alex quickly texted Danielle. _Nice. I'm waiting in the airport._

Despite the fact that it was around two in the morning back in England, her reply came a few seconds later. _Great!_

He smiled.

Over the past six months, he had almost begun to believe that Danielle was actually his sister. They lived in the same house, had the same passion, and, to some extent, shared the same experiences. She still had his last name from that time when she needed emergency medical treatment for a virus planted by a psychotic ex-CIA agent who had it out for Alex, and before that, she worked with him at the music school they both attended. Actually, the first day they met was the day an assassin tried to shoot Alex in the middle of a crowded cafe.

He was just in America to testify. Six weeks, tops. Then he could go home and, hopefully, leave MI6 for good. Testifying was just the last step to being free from the bureaucratic mess that federal law enforcement agencies were.

"Excuse me," someone said from above him. "Are you Alex Rider?"

Alex shoved his phone into his pocket and glanced up.

A tall man stood over him dressed in faded jeans and a navy polo shirt. He had dark hair that was just beginning to grey, and lines around his eyes from staring too hard at papers or screens for answers that didn't exist.

Standing, Alex held out his hand. "Blakemore?"

"Good to meet you. How was the flight?"

"A little rough, but good."

Blakemore nodded, looking satisfied. "Excellent. I'm parked out front. Need a hand with anything?"

"I've got it." Alex hoisted his backpack up and grabbed the handle of his suitcase, walking slightly behind the American agent as they headed towards the revolving doors that led to the parking lots. All he knew was that Randal Blakemore was his host and the former partner of the rogue CIA agent that Alex was testifying against. Alex was supposed to be staying with Blakemore until the trial was over and he already had plans to spend most of his time exploring the city, envisioning a dingy federal-allotted apartment with neighbors of questionable character. Wasn't D.C. supposed to be like the London slums?

"So," Blakemore said as he pressed a button on his key fob. The lights blinked on a black Chevy SUV and the trunk popped open. Alex slung his baggage in, then climbed into the passenger seat - wait, that was a steering wheel.

Right.

He jogged around to the other side of the car and got in, hoping his mistake went unnoticed. He was supposed to be a professional, after all, and Blakemore hadn't even finished his sentence.

"So," Blakemore said again as he twisted the keys in the ignition, making the car roar to life. "Your cover."

"I'm a history major from Oxford here to intern with you on a study of ancient illuminated manuscripts from the early Renaissance period," Alex recited automatically, having committed his cover to memory during the flight across the Atlantic.

"Good. Everyone thinks I'm a recently tenured history professor at Georgetown who dabbles in archeology." Blakemore shook his head. "So, Alex, how many missions have you done?"

"I'm not sure that's relevant, sir."

"I've already read your file," Blakemore said, not unkindly. "Jones sent it over a few days ago."

Oh.

"Well, these last few months have been a bit of a wreck, which is how I ran into Troy. . ." just saying the name made Alex's newer bullet wound throb. "I thought I was done with my government, but apparently. . ."

Blakemore nodded as he merged the car onto the interstate. "Once you've worked for the feds long enough - you might have already realized this - you'll see that working in an agency is about politics as much as it's about enforcing the law."

"True that." Like the incident where Jones froze all of Danielle's accounts until Alex agreed to take on another mission.

"So, what file did Colton send you about my family?"

Alex blinked, taken aback. "What file?"

Blakemore sighed. "Figures he didn't send it over. _Bastard_. Our _beloved_ head of the FBI was supposed to send over information about my family so you could prepare yourself. You know, this all has to keep up the appearance of being coordinated through the Georgetown international exchange program, which is why you're staying with me. We can't just give you some run-down apartment near K Street."

"Really." Alex had a feeling he wouldn't like where this conversation was going. He just wanted quiet, a few weeks to be in and out of the country. Nothing else.

"Yes. The kids moved around a bit so you have your own room - the younger ones were going to share anyways."

Alex glanced over at the door, seriously considering jumping out of the car. He did *not* sign up for a host family. Danielle and Tom would probably kill themselves laughing if they heard about this. "Okay."

Blakemore barked out a laugh. "You don't sound thrilled."

"I just-"

"It's fine. My oldest is in college. Catie, my second, is holding down the fort. You know the drill; long hours for me, my wife's had to go back to work with the recession, et cetera." his fingers drummed against the wheel as he turned off the interstate.

Alex couldn't think of anything else to do but nod, even though he had no idea what Blakemore was talking about.

"Catie knows what I do - we had to tell her, my wife and I, after an incident a few years back. However," Blakemore turned, fixing Alex with a vaguely threatening glare, "There's no reason she has to know why _you're_ here. She thinks you're just an exchange student, and I'd appreciate it if you kept it that way."

"Wasn't planning on telling anyone," he muttered.

"Right."

Now that the car had left the highway, Alex couldn't stop staring at the rural subdivisions that were rapidly springing up from the grounds. Houses quickly turned into neighborhoods that sprawled almost as far as he could see.

"This is where most of the government workers live," Blakemore said by way of explanation. "Easy commute."

Ah. That made sense.

Alex expected the car to turn down any one of the several roads branching off from the main one, but the subdivision began to thin out and disappeared altogether after a man-made pond. The tires thumped as the road changed from smooth, new pavement to older asphalt that was riddled with cracks. Trees began to appear, gaining height as they on.

"So," Blakemore said. "The trial starts in two days. Are you familiar with our court system?"

"Somewhat," Alex replied. "Isn't it based on English law?"

"Yes. Do you know anything about federal courts?"

"Not yours."  
"Good, because they operate completely differently from normal ones. Especially in your case. You're nineteen, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. They won't expect you to know very much about how the trial works beyond the basic proceedings and sequencing. There's a file with information you should know about the federal court system and a dossier on the defense attorney. The lady's got a reputation for dishonest work, and I wouldn't put it past her to try and pull something with your testimony. _Especially_ with Galen involved."

Alex frowned, not recognizing the name. "Galen?"

"Galen Troy. Never heard his name?"

"No. I only met him twice, and the second time he was trying to kill me so we couldn't exactly _chat_." Shaking his head, Alex let out a heavy sigh. Nightmares from the theater bomb had continued to plague his sleep and every time he woke, the recently healed wound in his stomach throbbed.

Blakemore gave him a quick glance, his steely eyes softening. "That fire was on the news. Your sister got caught inside, right?"

"She got out through the back door."

"Well, she's lucky."

"Yeah." Alex paused for a beat. "We all are."

Suddenly, the car slowed down with a jerk as Blakemore turned the wheel left to its full extent, swinging the vehicle around onto a narrow street that intersected with the main road at a sharp angle. Alex instinctively grabbed onto the passenger door as he prepared himself for the collision -

But the car drove on.

He let his hand slide off the door, mentally berating himself for being so on edge and knowing that getting a grip on himself was imperative to surviving the next month and a half. Whatever happened to the 'inner calm' that had allowed his fourteen-year-old self to infiltrate an international terrorist organization or escape from the icy Alps on an ironing board? He shook his head slightly, pushing his hair back. Now he felt like that calm had become a raging storm, and distracting himself was the only way to keep it out.

"How much can I say at the trial?" he asked Blakemore. "In case something we did was acceptable for SAS protocol that's not in American law."

"That would merit a full explanation, which would be cleared in the interest of ending this thing as fast as we can," Blakemore replied, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. "Tell me about Galen."

Alex thought for a moment, then started to speak, sequencing the events as best as he could. He told everything from infiltrating Troy's hotel room to the last thing he remembered before -embarrassingly- passing out as the theater burned down around him. He talked about Raoul August, the infamous drug lord who was giving drugs to minors in return for prostitution. August was in jail, finally, thanks to Danielle. And, finally, he told Blakemore about the aftermath of the catastrophe: Ben Daniels, who had the lower part of his right leg pulverized by a staged car wreck; Danielle, who tripped over a spotlight fleeing the theater and got her entire left leg caught in the glassy shards, who also had two steel pins in her wrist; and the civilians who were killed or maimed during the explosion. It had been a massive disaster; renovations were only now beginning because the entire foundation of the old building was riddled with cracks from the shock waves.

Blakemore was silent for a few moments as the car rumbled along uneven pavement towards another neighborhood that unfolded on the horizon, and Alex realized how tired he was from travelling across time zones. His body was ready to pass out from exhaustion, not to think about trials and bombs. Years without travelling had allowed him to grow all too comfortable in England.

"I knew Galen's wife died," Blakemore said at last. "I didn't realize your people were involved."

"Wasn't my idea."

"Oh, I'm not blaming you. Galen wasn't the most stable guy beforehand, but after his wife died he really seemed to unhinge."

Before Alex could ask what that meant, Blakemore pulled the car to a stop at the very last house on a cul-de-sac, set back a good distance from the road. It looked like some of the older houses he had seen in England with a wide porch and two levels, the top one with three windows jutting out dormers. The roof was tiled with shingles that looked more like wood than fiberglass - not good for walking on, probably slick in the rain - and Alex found himself instinctively analyzing possible entry and escape routes, just in case something happened. Now he was including 'sudden fire' in his list of possible catastrophes after the theater bombing.

He blinked, trying not to think any further down paranoid paths for fear of jinxing his supposedly calm stay in America. The last thing he needed was an international scandal to finagle his way out of; MI6 couldn't do him many favors now, as he was legally an adult.

He fetched his suitcase from the trunk and started up the front path towards the stairs, following Blakemore as he unlocked the door and pulled it open with a grating noise.

The interior of the house was dark, as it was night, but the blue glow of a TV screen cast a faint shadow on the opposite wall of shelves.

"Catie?" Blakemore asked softly, his footsteps making the floor creak as he walked around the side of the couch. "Ah, they fell asleep. Catie and the twins were going to wait up for you. Your room is at the top of the stairs on the left."

"Thanks," Alex said quietly. Did Blakemore say _twins_? How many kids did he have? More importantly, would Alex be expected to . . . interact with them? On top of dealing with a trial and constant paranoia?

 _Where are the stairs?_ He glanced around and spotted a staircase through the doorway on his right - which, he found as he walked, led to the kitchen. He started up the stairs, trying to carry his luggage as quietly as possible as not to disturb anyone who might be sleeping. Suddenly he found that every muscle in his body ached, even though he had done nothing but sit all day, and that he really should be asleep.

At the top of the stairs, there was only one room on the left. Reaching inside, he flicked on the lights and dumped his stuff on the carpet in front of him. The walls were pale and the carpeting grey. A bed was pushed up into the far right corner with a closet in the opposite one and a nightstand, desk, and chair arranged around the edges of the floor. Alex saw a flash drive on his desk, probably the trial procedures that he needed to learn, but he was too tired to do anything else but turn the lights back off and fall into bed.

* * *

The next morning, Alex woke up with a yawn. He reached for his phone only to see that it was 3:30 in the morning by American time; definitely too early to be awake, but he didn't think he could sleep again.

Bloody time changes.

The mattress squeaked as he rolled out of bed and quietly walked over to the door, thankful for the plush carpet that muffled his footsteps.

Since he was awake, he might as well explore.

Alex wasn't sure if he trusted Randall Blakemore. The man seemed nice enough; he had a wife, kids, and a pretty decent house for a federal worker, but something about his demeanor bothered Alex. All the questions during the drive from the airport had felt more like an interrogation than an introduction, as if Blakemore was testing him, and he did work for the FBI which, if Alex remembered correctly, dealt with internal homeland security threats.

He was starting to feel like he was on another mission.

Alex slung his backpack over his shoulder and snatched the flashdrive off the desk, then opened the door and cautiously descended the stairs. The sooner he could start learning about the trial, the better.

If his testimony didn't hold up, Galen Troy would be released on account of insufficient evidence for a conviction - Alex knew that much, at least - and everyone Alex knew would be in danger.

Troy had vowed to kill all of them - Danielle, Tom Harris, Ben Daniels and his wife, and probably the rest of K Unit.

 _I'll make you beg for death._

Alex entered the kitchen and blindly reached out for the light switch, flicking it on. Bright light flooded the room, and he quickly located a lamp on the breakfast bar that he could use instead lest he wake any of the Blakemores. That wouldn't be the first impression he was looking for.

"No impression would be better," he mumbled under his breath. Why hadn't anyone told him that, in addition to being the lynch pin in the prosecution's case against a psychotic murderer, he was also expected to live with _people_? And pretend, for an entire family, that he was studying Renaissance history? At least being a student was an excuse to stay out of the house.

Alex had just fired up his laptop when he heard the floor creak above his head.

Footsteps.

Whoever was walking around started down the stairs, each creak louder than the previous one until a girl in footie pyjamas stepped into the kitchen. Yawning, she rubbed her eyes, then flinched as she saw Alex.

He didn't even know where to begin. _Hi. I'm the stranger your family is hosting. Don't mind me sitting in the dark at three a.m._

She looked just as bewildered, but hesitantly waved. "Are you Alex?" her voice was raspy.

"Yeah. Hello," he replied, subtly turning his computer, which was displaying the stipulations of conviction in American courts, away from her line of sight.

"Why are you awake?"

"Time change."

"Oh. Well, hi." she tossed her unruly hair over her shoulders and left through the opposite door - not the one to the living room, the other one on the right.

Alex shook his head. What was that about?

A few minutes later, a door creaked open somewhere through the living room. Alex glanced into the darkened room but couldn't see anything except the faint silver glow of the moon on the floorboards.

He was about to shut his computer and go investigate when, like a ghost, Randall Blakemore manifested in the doorway to the kitchen.

Blakemore's eyes widened for a second, but his face smoothed into an bland mask. "Alex. Time change?"

"Yeah."

"I was going to come get you. A call just came in for my unit to get to Capitol hill. Coming?"

Something told Alex that he didn't really have a choice.

"There's been a shooting," Blakemore said hurriedly as he yanked a thick jacket off the coat rack. "Some big-shot Arabian oil lord - war lord, more likely. You interested?"

Alex, though he hated to admit it, was slightly curious. Only slightly. Watching the American Intelligence Agencies work could potentially be informative; it was no secret that the Americans had the best intelligence ops in the world, even though they never did manage to assassinate Fidel Castro.

"Would your handler object?" Alex asked. An international intelligence scandal was the last thing he needed in his life.

"I _am_ the handler," Blakemore replied as he opened the door. "So no."

Alex shut his laptop and took his jacket with him as he followed Blakemore out to the car. The night air was pitch-black out in the rural neighborhood, and still except for the occasional leaves rustling in the woods. Patches of ice shone on the street as they drove back towards Washington, D.C. in deadly reflections from the headlights, and Alex couldn't help but wonder how anyone was shot during a night like this. The cold would have made the gun malfunction - unless it was military grade.

He mentioned this to Blakemore, who nodded. "Yes. Chances are a civilian wasn't responsible for this."

Alex remained silent until his phone rang, vibrating in his pocket, such an odd hour for a call.

"Hello?"

"Alex," Ben Daniels' voice crackled over the line. That explained the timing. "Don't get involved."

"Involved in what?" Alex asked, knowing that he should have seen this coming. Every intelligence agency had their informants, and MI6 was no different. Of course they already knew about the assassination.

"You know what, and judging from the GPS on your phone, you're already on the way." Ben stifled a yawn that was still earsplitting through the phone. "I just got the call from Jones. She wants you to know that if you choose to work with the Americans, the Bank will deny all knowledge of you and cut you off from any resources."

"What interest does she -" Alex paused, catching Blakemore's glance. "Why does this matter?"

"The dead bloke was an influential man, Alex. He was also one of our _informants_ , about ten years ago."

"Good to know. I'll pass it on."

"Alex, do yourself a favor: stay out of it. Focus on the trial and let the Americans handle their business."  
Alex was tempted to agree, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Ben wasn't telling him everything that this case involved. A former informant shouldn't have been any concern to MI6; if he was active over a decade ago, whatever happened was already over and irreversible.

Unless their involvement with him broke protocol.

Unless their involvement with said informant broke sanctions for the United Nations.

 _That_ would be interesting.

"Alex?" Ben's staticy voice shook him out of his thoughts.

"How's Danielle?" Alex asked. His adopted sister was currently staying with Ben and his wife, Gwen.

Ben sighed heavily. "She's fine. Stop changing the subject."

"Tell her I said hi," said Alex, turning the words over in his mind as he made his decision. "And tell her not to call me."

"Alex-"

He hung up and disabled his GPS.

Blakemore glanced over at him. "Was that your handler?"

"Kind of. Long story. If you were expecting any help from MI6, don't bother." Alex ran his hands through his hair, adding the lack of help to the list of reasons why he hated Jones and MI6. "They won't be sending any. And officially, I don't exist."

Blakemore snorted. "You're joking."

"No," Alex slid his eyes sideways at him. "Is that not how _you_ operate?"

"We don't bully people into working for us, if that's what you mean. Well. Besides criminal informants, and only rarely."

"Maybe you have more people willing to get their hands dirty." Alex half-winced, realizing he wasn't being as polite as he could but found himself hard pressed to care very much.

"Probably," Blakemore agreed pleasantly. "Side-effect of having a bigger country. We might have the same percentage of agents, but it's a larger number."

Neither spoke for the rest of the car ride.

Alex tried to mentally map their journey as best as the dark would allow; he only had the lighted street corners and halogen bar signs for landmarks. There were no tall buildings except for a single spire that stuck up from a domed building a few kilometers away. Blakemore had chosen a back road that wound around suburbs and strip malls.

After about twenty minutes, a row of buildings materialized on either side of the widening street, revealing that the backroad had followed the tube lines into the center of the city. They drove by multistoried buildings and parking garages, each with a gate and some level of security in front. Streetlights were suspiciously absent from most buildings, hiding the names and street addresses from street view.

 _Embassies,_ Alex thought. _International embassies._

Sure enough, the car's headlights flashed across a large sign proclaiming that local vernacular dubbed the street 'Embassy Row'.

Instead of continuing straight at the next light, Blakemore turned down an intersecting road. Flickers of blue and red flashed off the nearby buildings as human shadows conducted rapid, silent business in front of said buildings. Four sets of headlights beamed from the middle of the street, almost blinding Alex, and Blakemore pulled up alongside them, not bothering to turn off his car as he shoved open the door.

Alex zipped up his jacket and followed, stopping short at the front of Blakemore's SUV.

The first thing he noticed was the eerie stillness. Lights flashed, but there were no sirens. Words were exchanged, yet no one seemed to speak. The air was always still when someone had died.

Blakemore crossed the epicenter of activity - two EMT's crouched above a prone corpse sprawled out across the street - and had a hurried discussion with two other people in dark clothes, a woman with golden hair and a man in a sweatshirt. Both looked hastily dressed, so they were recently alerted as well and had probably just arrived, and the paramedics were just starting to lift the body onto a stretcher. Another emerged from the back of an ambulance with a black tarp.

Alex leaned against the metal hood, warm from the engine's rumbling, and waited for the EMTs to wheel the stretcher by so he could get a glimpse of the ground.

The Arabian had been shot on the sidewalk. Dark spatters stained two concrete panels in what Alex estimated to be a square meter's area, and, if the body had fallen back. . .

Alex closed his eyes and tried to remember what he had just seen, something his uncle had made him do on several occasions when they visited a museum or store.

There had been a shoe. . . the toe pointing up, the rest hidden behind one of the EMTs.

So the body fell backwards - on his back, toes pointing up, hence the shoe.

But the blood stains were _underneath._ That was impossible.

Unless the body had been moved.

Alex opened his eyes.

The Arabian hadn't been shot on the sidewalk.

Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, Alex stepped away from the car and looked up, spinning in a slow circle to examine the other buildings.

The blood was on the sidewalk, so the Arabian was shot from an angle.

"Alex!"

He looked back at the crime scene, saw Blakemore gesturing at him to come over, and hurried over.

Blakemore stepped aside, making Alex a part of their huddled conversation.

"He's a kid," the other male agent said. "You can't be serious."

 _No, my name is Alex._

"Classified," Blakemore replied. "But yes, I am. Alex, meet Miles."

Miles, a tall man with a dour face and unkempt hair, didn't make any acknowledgement, which suited Alex just fine.

The blonde held out her hand with a warm smile. "Alex. I'm Elise."

He silently shook her hand.

"Alex is here assisting with the trial," Blakemore said. "His dad and his uncle were both high-ranking agents in London-"

Alex wasn't sure about the high-ranking part, but he didn't interrupt.

"-and they promptly blacklisted him."

"What trial?" Elise asked.

Miles and Blakemore shared a meaningful glance.

"Galen Troy," Miles said.

Her eyes widened. " _You're_ the kid he went after?"

 _I'm not a kid,_ Alex wanted to say, but he knew that would make him sound like one. "Yes."

"Everyone's heard," she said. "We-" Miles gave her a sour glance. " _I_ was wondering what had happened to you."

 _Not much. Shot, lost half my pancreas, damaged liver, stuck on insulin pills until my body decides to start functioning again, my sister's leg is permanently scarred, and one of our iconic theaters was blown up._

Alex wasn't about to list his physical ailments to a group of strangers, so he shrugged. "Nothing exciting."

* * *

First chapter down! Woo-hoo! If you liked it, please review! I love reviews. They inspire me to write better and *hint* faster! If you didn't like it, still review! Tell me what you didn't like; I'll try to adjust, if it fits within the story's parameters :)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Hi! I know it's been a little longer than usual between chapter updates. I'll be updating this about every other week :)

WOW, all the reviews! I'm blown away, honestly. You guys are _amazing_! Thank you so much! Replies will be at the end of this chapter. Also, I promise to post longer chapters in the future.

* * *

The dreary dawn brought with it a typical example of D.C. weather: nebulous clouds of fog, a half-hearted drizzle. Car exhaust from thousands of vehicles choked the air, clinging to the fog and mist as heavy clouds hung as if anchored over the capital of what some said was the only superpower left on the international stage.

Alex was, for better or worse, accustomed to the acrid smog. London was much the same in climate and air quality.

The blood stains had been scrubbed off the sidewalk with something that smelled like bleach so that the only indicator of any murder was the unusually white patch of sidewalk and the sharp stench of cleaner, the latter of which would disperse into the heavy air soon enough. Alex felt his hands start to cramp from where they were balled in his jacket pockets. He had stopped feeling the front grate of Blakemore's SUV, having been leaning against it now for over an hour. His eyes were fixed on the sidewalk blocks where the Arab had been to scour every centimeter and commit it all to memory. The police had been sent off some time ago by a broad-shouldered man with untamed hair and a scruffy beard who had arrived and waved around a badge like a king's scepter, while traffic was currently being rerouted down a different block. Now the only time constraint was for the FBI to decide whether to clear out or to try and ambush embassy workers for questioning as they came into work; the latter option would have to take place on the same sidewalk where the body was found, as any embassy was by international law the sovereign property of whichever country it belonged to and no American agencies could conduct investigations without obtaining permission from the ambassador's chief of staff.

Asphalt crunched under rubber soles as Blakemore strode over to Alex, his gait evened with grace that accompanied years of experience in matters such as these, unlike the blonde woman, Elise, whose hunched posture and harried stride betrayed her unease. Alex was trying to observe everything he could about the agents who would be working this case, just as he researched every new composition that he played: the better he knew the artist, the easier it was to proceed in their medium. Likewise, the more he gathered about the FBI agents, the easier it would be for him to work with them on their soil.

"Miles and Elise are going back to the office to be briefed by the head of our division," Blakemore said, his voice gravelly with weariness. "We're going downtown."

Alex pushed himself away from the front of the car. "For what?"

"Coffee. And you're going to tell me what you think about all this."

Without commenting on the thinly veiled order, Alex climbed into the car and shut the door behind him, hit with a wave of exhaustion as soon as his back thumped against the seat.

A flicker of motion caught his gaze in the mouth of an intersecting street. Standing next to a towering concrete building with no guard from the rain, a dark-haired woman with nearly translucent skin crossed her arms over a soaked jacket, her fingers curling into the wet fabric. Her mouth pressed into a thin line as she stared at the recently cleaned sidewalk with dark eyes. Her face was covered with marks of exhaustion: dark circles smudged beneath her eyes, sallow skin, chin tilting down towards the ground.

Alex didn't know what had drawn his eyes to her, but he couldn't stop the flicker of intrigue that rose to the front of his mind.

How long had she been standing there?

The woman looked worried - had she seen anything? _What_ had she seen?

Alex rubbed his eyes as Blakemore jammed the keys into the ignition and wrenched them around, jerking the sputtering engine to life. As he turned the car around in the middle of the street until the nose pointed towards the barricade, Alex glanced over at the American agent. Blakemore's posture was rigid, his knuckles bulging from fingers clenched around the rim of the steering wheel. He was clearly upset, put-off somehow by the murder, and Alex noticed for the first time that Blakemore's hair was streaked with thin bands of grey.

* * *

Curls of steam spilled over the rim of Alex's mug as he lifted it to his lips, his hand wedged beneath the handle, and took another sip of the scalding coffee. More cream than he would ordinarily prefer, but not terrible for a cafe that was staffed by college students older than Alex but much more naive, the sign in the entrance about a safe collision of politics, art, and conversation being the primary indication of that. In Alex's experience, nothing about the interactions of politics and art fell under the domain of 'safe'. Still, he supposed, the average student had no way of knowing the true _collisions_ in any of those realms, the catastrophes wrought when conversation moved from utopian ideas to practices that were anything but.

"What's on your mind?" Blakemore asked. He leaned against the back of his chair, legs crossed, hands loosely resting against his mug on the table, a much looser posture than in the car.

Alex had to make an effort to drag his thoughts back to the present. "Sorry - About?"

"The incident."

Alternative music blasted from the speaker that was in the ceiling directly above their table, masking their conversation from anyone who happened to pass by even though the cafe was mainly empty at such an early hour.

Alex cleared his throat as he silently sorted out what information would be useful to keep to himself and what would be prudent to share.

"I don't think the bo - the man was shot outside the embassy," he said. "If he had, the blood wouldn't have been beneath him. And there wasn't any on his clothes. There was a woman there too, on the other side of the traffic light."

"She was there the entire time," Blakemore said. "I thought she was out for a smoke or something, but when we left, she was still there. Maybe hoping we would notice her."

"Too afraid to come to you?"

"Probably."

Alex drummed his fingers against his mug, feeling them ache for the familiar friction of his violin strings. A six-hour practice run was how he solved most of his problems, allowing the answers to form in his head while music flowed from his fingers on instinct. Once again he silently berated himself for leaving his Guarneri violin in London - it had been a gift, the prize from when he won the Sibelius concerto competition (along with a recording and performance contract that forced Alex into the public eye) and he hadn't wanted to risk damaging it.

"Depending on any information that our archives hold on the dead man, the CIA may become involved," Blakemore said. "I'm warning you now. Our relationship with the CIA is less than friendly."

Alex nodded. "I understand."

Blakemore set his mug down on the table with heavy plonk and pushed his chair back. "Ready? We need to go back to the office. Security tapes from the storefronts will have footage of that lady who was at the intersection. That's all we have."

Draining the last of his coffee, Alex stood.

* * *

The woman was named Christie Dome, and she was an intern to congresswoman Janice Fields, Democrat, Illinois.

Christie hated her job, her boss, and her office. What had seemed a promising internship for a graduate student studying at Georgetown had turned into little more than servitude. Her daily tasks consisted of coffee runs for the rest of the Congresswoman's office, fetching the Congresswoman's drycleaning, and listening to endless tirades about lazy she was, despite the blisters on her feet from running as fast as she could in heels to fulfill the Congresswoman's demands.

Alex knew all this from her Facebook page. One of Blakemore's staff, a recently-graduated college student named Sebastian, had found Christie's online profile through a new facial recognition software that ran the grainy image of her from the security tapes through all publicly available online databases.

"Here," Sebastian said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up with one hand as the other shoved a stack of papers barely contained with a paperclip across the desk towards Alex.

Alex took the papers and started flipping through them -printouts of Christie's Facebook posts- looking for anything that connected her to the Saudi Arabian embassy, where the man's body was dumped.

Blakemore and Miles, the sour-faced man, had gone to Christie's home address to ask her some questions about what she saw in the early hours of morning and how she found herself to be at Embassy Row at 3 a.m.

That left Alex at Blakemore's office, trying to avoid interacting with the other members of his team, which was proving hard as Blakemore had a relatively extensive network of people on his surveillance team instead of the SAS units of four that Alex had experienced.

There was Sebastian, who looked the part of university nerd with curly hair and the glasses he kept pushing up every other minute. He had graduated with honors from William and Mary college (Alex knew absolutely nothing about that institution, but from the way Sebastian's diploma was prominently displayed behind his desk, that was some kind of accomplishment), and was now working on Blakemore's surveillance team as an auditory specialist to read and refine recordings from bugs, stakeouts, and video. Elise, who Alex had met that morning, was currently on her lunch break. She had said that most of her work was based around researching the profiles, histories, and connections of the various subjects that the team was assigned to. A lot of pressure, Alex thought, because it was her information that dictated whether a bust or a raid was appropriate or would be successful; seemingly innocuous mistakes could easily prove fatal in such a setting.

Sarah, the rotor -Alex had asked her what a rotor did, and she replied that she was the one who kept the team running by keeping track of all the files, print-outs, and ink cartridges that they needed - also doubled as a field agent, with the lowest average time on record for the FBI fitness test (Sebastian had shared that particular fact with Alex). Finally, there was Victor, who wasn't in for work but was the liaison between the white collar division and Blakemore's office. Alex was glad Victor wasn't in; he was beginning to think that his head would explode if he had to meet one more person.

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs to balance the papers that contained Christie Dome's Facebook profile. As harmless as her cat pictures seemed, she was still the only lead in what could easily become a combustible international scandal - one that, when the media got hold of it, would become an inferno.

"The Saudis hate us," Sebastian said, adjusting his chair and pushing his glasses up yet again. "They tolerate our business for OPEC, but would burn the U.S. to the ground for almost anything. This could be a disaster. I vote Victor handles it?"

Sarah gave him a reproachful glance, twirling a strand of her sandy hair around her finger. "That's a bit extreme, Seb."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, they're _extremists._ "

"Business interests always trump religious affiliation. You know that."

Sebastian scoffed. " _Business._ Dirty money, more like it."

"Probably," Sarah admitted. "But that's not our division."

Alex rolled his eyes. Did they normally talk so much? If so, he would have to find his own office, as he usually worked either with classical music playing in the background or complete silence. There was nothing in between that allowed him to focus and that included inane speculation about international politics, although he would agree with Sebastian that the flow of money through the Middle East tended to be less than clean.

"Alex," Sebastian said a few moments later, his accent emphasising the latter syllable. "Have you ever been to Egypt? I went last summer-"

Alex didn't hear the rest of his sentence because his brain ground to a halt as soon as he heard _Egypt_. His pulse throbbed in his ears as his skin prickled, remembering the scalding, furious sun and the sand that rubbed his arms and legs raw, and the gruesome sculpture somewhere in the Sahara Desert: an SUV, destroyed, hollowed-out by the blocks of C4 that had been strapped to the undercarriage, flung onto its side on the scorched sand.

 _Don't get in the car, Jack._

"Hey!" Sebastian stuck his leg out and kicked Alex's chair. "Are you listening?"

Alex squeezed his eyes shut, blinking hard, and pushed his hair out of his face. He felt a sudden chill sweep over his arms. "Yeah."

"Have you ever been?"

 _Been? Ah, yes - Egypt._ "Once."

"What did you think? I thought it was horrible. Dreadful heat, and the people there are, like, culturally suspicious of outsiders." Sebastian pushed his damned glasses back onto his face, then seemed to think better of it and took them off.

"I'm never going back," Alex deadpanned, pretending to turn to another page of his profile sheets.

"Did something happen?"

"Nothing happened."

"Don't talk much, do you?"

"It's a dangerous pastime."

* * *

Alex stretched his neck, tilting his head from side to side as he leaned forward with his elbows on the desk in front of him, which had been hastily requisitioned from a janitorial closet to accommodate his presence in Blakemore's office. He had gone through Christie Dome's Facebook, the dossier gathered by Elise on her history, and began research on her acquaintances and ex-boyfriend. So far nothing had appeared that raised any red flags except repeat complaints about her boss, the Congresswoman, that made Alex truly pity anyone who had to work for that woman. The job sounded like hell.

A sharp rap sounded from the doorway.

Alex, Sebastian, and Elise, and Sarah glanced up. A suited man with an ID clipped to his lapel held up a large manilla envelope. "Delivery for Alex Rider."

Alex slowly got to his feet, chair creaking, and strode over to the door. "Do I have to sign anything?"

"No," said the man, handing him the envelope. "I was instructed by the Director to deliver it personally."

Dread sank deep inside Alex's stomach as soon as his hand touched the thick paper. From the weight of the envelope, he guessed it was filled with papers of some sort - his file? Was this some crude attempt at blackmail?

"The _Director_?" Elise asked, her lips pursing. "Must be from your people."

Alex flicked his eyebrows in reply as he unfastened the prong and tore the envelope flap off, dumping the contents out on his desk. Seven photographs fluttered onto the other papers scattered across his desktop. They were printed on photographic paper, glossy and flexible, with an image quality so clear that Alex couldn't even try to dispute the subjects of the images. He picked one up and held it taut between his hands, half-worried that he was going to be sick. Sweat prickled on his forearms and dispelled the chill he had felt earlier; his stomach twisted again, and he let the picture go.

"Are you okay, Alex?" Sarah spoke softly, her voice filled with concern.

Sebastian pushed his chair back and stood, sauntering over to Alex and picking up one of the pictures. His eyes flicked over the subject, filled with a glimmer of interest and curiosity, and Alex couldn't find his voice to tell Sebastian to shove off.

"Who's this?" Sebastian asked.

Alex's eyes were drawn again to the girl in the picture Sebastian held. In that image, she was playing the piano. Her fingers curved gracefully over the keys as her left hand extended into the bass clef register, index finger resting on the black E-flat key, and her hair, golden-blonde, caught the light as it spilled over her shoulders. A single, winding scar was barely visible on her left shoulder, the one facing the camera, and it quickly disappeared behind the sleeve of the t-shirt she wore.

He would know her anywhere.

"My sister," Alex replied in a wooden voice.

Sebastian's eyes widened, all traces of good humor gone. "Shit."

"Tell Blakemore," Elise said. "He and Miles are on the way."

"Any sign of the girl?" Alex asked, wanting to think about anything other than why someone would be photographing his sister and how those pictures ended up with the director of the FBI.

"No. She hasn't been in to work, and her apartment was ransacked."

* * *

"What happened?" Blakemore asked.

Alex withheld a heavy sigh in favor of turning his head to stare out the window. They were in Blakemore's SUV on the way back to his house, and the highway was currently traversing a lengthy bridge across choppy, muddied waters that led to the Atlantic Ocean. The storm clouds from that morning had stuck all day, and a tentative rain had already begun.

An hour ago, when Blakemore and Miles had returned to their office, the conversation had quickly turned towards expanding the search radius for Christie Dome. Sarah had called the D.C. Police and requested that an APB be put out for Christie's car registration and license plate, which Sebastian had obtained online, and their search had yet to yield anything else. Miles had checked the same cameras that had caught Christie's image, but an unexplainable bout of static had occurred between the hours of one and two in the morning, right around the estimated time of death for the Arab. Whoever had dumped the body was running a sophisticated operation if they had been able to block the cameras.

Alex had neglected to mention anything about the odd photographs until he and Blakemore were in the car, not wanting to have to explain his and Danielle's history to the rest of the team; how she was his foster-something-sister and had been there when Galen Troy, the reason Alex was even in the United States, had blown up one of London's iconic theaters.

"The man who delivered it said the photographs had come through the director," Alex replied.

Blakemore's response differed from Sebastian's in the expletive he chose. "Do you think it's MI6?"

"I don't know. Maybe. They have no reason to let me know they're watching her; she's staying with a bloody SAS man." Well, technically Benjamin Daniels was currently an operative for MI6, but Alex had seen far too much of the SAS training camp and operational precision to think that anyone truly left that branch of the British Military.

"I'll look into it," Blakemore said, giving Alex a kind glance. "Do you want to arrange for her to come here?"

"Absolutely not."

"Even if it would be safer?"

"No," Alex said forcefully, his fingers gripping the door handle in a vise-like hold.

"We can protect her."

"I made that mistake once."

"Alex," Blakemore glanced away from the road to look at him, "Your file clearly demonstrates your abilities in the field, but you _are_ nineteen years old. Most of the successes in this business come with experience."

 _Typical American arrogance,_ Alex thought irritably, not voicing his thoughts aloud. _Not everyone's like you. Not everyone draws the line at hurting innocent kids._

He found himself wondering what would be best for Danielle: he could let her live in ignorance and pray that no one got to her before they closed the case in America, or he could tell her - no, maybe Ben - to keep an eye out for any surveillance.

Alex refused to ask or suggest anything of the sort to Ben, who was filled with the anxiety of impending fatherhood as his very pregnant wife was due to have their baby any week now. Of course, he would do anything asked of him by the people at MI6, baby or not; he was a patriot. Alex, however, owed Ben a life debt. It was Ben, after all, who had dragged him out of the burning theater when Alex was half-dead from blood loss and a bullet wound.

No, Benjamin Daniels was not the person to involve.

"She plays piano," Alex said to the car window. "Pre-professional track at the Royal Academy of Music. Already has a few offers for recording contracts."

Blakemore nodded, his steely eyes fixed on the road. "We have a piano. Catie plays."

"She _cannot_ go anywhere with anyone involved in the Saudi Arabian assassination. _Any_ one."

"She won't."

Alex leaned back against the passenger seat and folded his arms across his chest, less than pleased with the prospect of making Danielle come to America. He was already anticipating her ire, as she had just begun a new semester of courses increasingly specialized towards her future as a contract soloist. She might cut his head off if he dared to suggest leaving this early.

" _Really_?" Danielle's voice was nearly earsplitting as a wide grin broke out across her face. "Whatever happened to your self-imposed isolation? Does this have anything to do with why Ben was so upset this morning?"

Alex tilted his phone down away from his face so that all she could see over their Facetime connection was the wooden boards on the front porch. He had decided to call her before going inside to lessen the possibility of being overheard. "I guess my plans have changed."

She pursed her lips, shrugging, and reached off the screen for something that clattered against a hard surface. Bringing the mug of tea to her lips, she took a sip and stared down into the steaming brew for a few seconds with look of pensiveness carving a furrow across her forehead. "Did someone change them for you?"

"I don't know," Alex said quietly. _Probably._ Danielle's enthusiasm was the opposite of the reaction that he had hoped for.

He heard the creaks inside the house before the front door opened and quickly said goodbye to Danielle as he shoved his phone into his pocket. It was warm against his thigh and he idly wondered if it would overheat.

A girl stepped off the threshold into the house, one hand braced against the doorknob and the other curled into the sleeve of her grey sweater. Her hair was auburn, coppery in the dusk light, and she had eyes that bore an unmistakable resemblance to Blakemore's.

She was pretty, Alex noticed, and quickly tried to push the thought out of his mind.

"Alex?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said.

She held out the hand that wasn't gripping the doorknob like a shield. "I'm Catie. My Dad told me to come find you, am I interrupting?"

"No, it's fine." Alex glanced down at where his phone rested in his pocket. "My sister."

"Ah. So, dinner's on the table, but you don't have to eat. You're probably tired. I'm sorry that Dad dragged you to the University this morning, we all tried to tell him to leave you alone for a few days." Catie's fingers tapped the doorknob, subconsciously impatient.

"I am tired," Alex agreed, pretending to stifle a yawn. "I'll just go up to bed."

She nodded and disappeared back into the house. Alex followed, quietly slipping up the stairs and shutting the door to his room slowly enough that it didn't slam.

When he sat on the edge of the bed with the intention of reading through the information about the damned trial he was supposed to be testifying in, Alex's body complained that it was tired and battered from being dragged through a busy day on little sleep and a lot of tension.

 _Just a few minutes,_ he thought as he allowed himself to fall sideways and swung his legs up onto the mattress so that he was staring up at the patterns etched in the paint on the ceiling. He sighed.

Behind his eyelids, all he could see was fire.

* * *

 **Review Replies** :

 **Guest** \- Thank you!

 **Ramona Fox** \- Yay! I'm glad :)

 **Format Freak** \- Okay, thank you so much! I really appreciate the people who catch errors like that and are kind enough to mention them. I hope the further usage of italics in the last chapter shows that I do, in fact, know how to use them lol; the asterisks are something I put to remind myself to italicize a word if I'm writing on mobile, and I have been known to miss them. Additionally, the liver is one of the organs that is capable of regenerating itself in a relatively short period of time, so any enzymatic stimulants or replacements would have been taken by Alex previous to the beginning of this storyline (6 months between stories). The tail of his pancreas was damaged and, like the thyroid, the pancreas can adjust its output of insulin to some extent if parts of it are removed or become damaged beyond their ability to function; so, yes, Alex will be somewhat of a diabetic for the rest of his life, but his body _is_ capable of remediating the effects to some degree because his health issue is caused by surgery instead of a cellular mutation in every pancreatic cell.

 **Guest** \- LOL I wish. Collaborating with Anthony Horowitz would be incredible, and I am planning on writing my own series sometime in the future!

 **LiveWiresandWildFires** \- Thanks! I'm glad you liked it

 **Magic Halfblood** : Ahh yes, I can promise more information about Troy's fall from sanity coming in the next chapter. Thanks! And as for the murder case, well, we'll see . . . ;)

 **Guest** : Wow, I'm glad my writing is worth your binging! Dang, thanks!

 **Scarlettmeadows:** Thank you!

 **Op-Fan:** Yay!

 **16SweetGirl96:** THank you so much! I will try to update more frequently!


	3. Chapter 3

After a few hours of restless sleep, Alex finally rolled out of bed and started pacing. It was barely three in the morning but his mind buzzed as if he'd drunk an entire litre of coffee before lying down to sleep. Despite all the assurances that Blakemore - well, _Mr._ Blakemore, as there was an entire family of Blakemores - had given towards Danielle's safety, Alex couldn't shake the lingering feeling that he was making a horrible mistake.

He felt the steady, throbbing stress of impending events thrum against his chest, dangerously close to being overwhelming. His mind alone was pulling him in a dozen different directions; his reality had its own set of obligations and decisions. There was the trial, of course, which he was dreading in the way that he usually dreaded performing for a particularly ornery critic because not only would he have to present a somehow credible testimony (without the help of MI6, who were now acting as if he didn't exist, not that they had ever gone out of their way to acknowledge him in the first place) but also because he would have to see Troy again.

Of course, Alex saw Troy nearly every night in dreams that usually ended with piles of corpses and rivers of blood and people broken into pieces like instruments that had been crushed underfoot.

Besides the trial, Alex was also supposed to be an exchange student, which meant a file of made-up classes and schedules for events that he would not be partaking in because, as far as he knew, they didn't exist. He quickly reviewed the information and schedules he was supposed to have committed to memory; sooner or later, someone would ask what he was studying or when he needed to be somewhere.

Alex's fingers, drumming against his legs, ached for his violin as he paused his pacing to look out the window into the brightening dawn. He hadn't noticed it before, but the Blakemore's house backed a large segment of Virginia woods. The yard held an ancient trampoline and a swing set that appeared to be well used, according to several dents in the metal legs and the rusty chains, but the brown grass quickly gave rise to saplings and undergrowth that predicated the deeper reaches of the forest. There was a deck too, with a large grill and a sad-looking deflated swimming pool.

Unease sank into his stomach and settled. Luck had allowed him to skip out on meeting the rest of the Blakemore family - well, besides Catie, and that was only briefly - which was good, because Alex didn't know how to interact with them. He didn't remember his parents and had no blood-related siblings to grow up with, and for nearly four years he rarely saw anyone besides his best mate, Tom Harris, thanks to the crippling depression that his last mission for MI6 had caused.

A flicker of motion caught Alex's eye, coming from the woods outside the window. Somewhere within the trees, a flicker of light made a warm orange glow and stayed, pulsing, for a few seconds like a torch. Alex instinctively moved back from the glass and to the side, far enough that he couldn't be seen from outside, but close enough to observe further.

After a few moments, the light went out and didn't come back on. Alex kept watching until he was sure that no one was going to emerge from the woods, then he walked over to the window, found the chain for the levered shade, and pulled it down until the weighted bar at the bottom thunked against the windowsill.

The incident faded from his mind after a few moments and he sat back on his bed, suddenly drowsy, and fell asleep.

* * *

Catie Blakemore's alarm went off at five o'clock in the morning, but she was already awake. The floor had been creaking at the end of the hall for hours, from Alex's room, as if he was pacing or something, and the noise had woken her up a few hours ago. The neighbor's dog had been barking too, which grated on her nerves. When her alarm blared, set to one of the local radio stations, she quickly leaned out of her bed and shut it off as not to wake her younger sister, Agnes, who slept on the twin bed against the opposite wall.

Catie felt the muscles in her abdomen twinge as she rolled off her bed and flung the plaid quilt somewhere towards her pillow, rubbing her eyes. Her room still looked different because Agnes had moved in to make room for Alex Rider even though she probably would have ended up in Catie's room anyways. Catie had pushed her bed to the corner near the window, leaving Agnes' to be against the opposite wall with two dressers lined up against the wall between their beds and the closet split in half against the other wall. It had been a hassle, but Catie didn't mind. She was used to hassles by now.

She tried to avoid the parts of the floor that creaked as she tiptoed over to the closet and eased the folding door open, rummaging around in one of the storage compartments for a long-sleeved t-shirt to pull on over the running shirt she'd slept in. The house was always cold in winter - her mom had blamed the old windows, but Catie was old enough to understand how expensive their ancient, inefficient heating system was.

Catie held the railing for balance as she forced herself to walk down the stairs but had to pause and lean against the wall, tightly gripping the banister, and cough. Her lungs already ached, and her stomach hurt even more at the irrepressible convulsions. The coughing was always worse in winter because the cold air hurt her lungs, like they didn't already have enough to contend with.

Once she was able to get downstairs, Catie unplugged her phone from its charger and jammed her earbuds into her ears, switching to one of the songs she listened to for her French class, to start making breakfast for her siblings.

The song begun, muffling the clatters of bowls and drawers as she quickly gathered the ingredients for pancakes and flicked on the stove. She listened to music to keep the silence from setting her on edge; the house was always quiet in the early morning, as both her parents left early for their jobs.

Catie hummed to herself as she worked, lost in a cycle of flipping pancakes, warming finished ones in the oven, and listening to music that she could barely understand for a class she didn't like.

" _Je te l'ai dit, tu as ce sourire, au coin des lèvres quand tu mens. Tu t'imaginais pouvoir t'en sortir, encore et encore facilement-"_ Catie paused the song on her phone and slowly repeated the words, struggling to get her mouth to cooperate with the odd sounds and vowel combinations. French was easily her most frustrating class, but she needed a decent grade in it for college - no, it was too early to think about college. And the acceptance notification from - _no, too early._

When Catie turned away from the stove to grab something from the kitchen table, she saw the person standing in the doorway and flinched. Her hand hit the glass of water that she was reaching for, knocking it to the ground with an ominous shattering noise.

"Great. I'm so sorry," Alex said, looking very apologetic.

"It's fine." Catie quickly coiled her earbuds around her phone and reached for a towel to start mopping up the water. She smiled ruefully at Alex. "I'm sorry, I was distracted."

He shook his head, a motion that made his shaggy hair flop around his face, and knelt next to the broken glass. Carefully picking up the larger shards, he discarded them in the trash can next to the counter. Catie delicately folded the now-soaked towel and left it on the stairs as a reminder to herself to throw it in with whoever's laundry that had to be done today.

"Do you always wake up this early?" Alex asked. He sounded tired too - no wonder, if he had been up pacing for most of the night.

"Yeah," Catie replied, glancing back at the stove to be sure that none of the pancakes had burnt. "I try to help out in the mornings - Mom and Dad leave early for their jobs, and the others are too young to use the stove, so I make breakfast."

His eyebrows flicked up. "Every morning?"

"Yup. Would you like pancakes? The first batch is done," Catie turned back to the stove and turned the front burner off, having used up all the batter.

"Uh. Sure."

Within a few moments, they were both sitting at the kitchen table with plates of pancakes, which was embarrassingly cluttered.

"You can shove all that to the floor," Catie said, pointing to the pile of books next to Alex's arm. "I'm sorry. The house is kind of a wreck -"

"It's fine," Alex replied. "My stuff is disorganized too - my sister _hates_ it, she's always trying to order it."

"Maybe she can help me when she gets here." Catie took a bite of pancakes and tried not to choke as the urge to cough once again made her chest constrict. "Dad said she's coming next week."

"Yeah," Alex said, and she noticed that he was already halfway done eating. "So. French music?"

Catie felt her face redden and fixed her eyes on the table, refusing to look at him. "I'm in AP French. It's driving me _insane_. I suck at languages."

"Your accent sounded pretty good. Maybe pronounce the r's a little softer."

She glanced up at him. "You speak French?"

He shook his head. "Haven't in awhile. My uncle made me learn a bunch of languages when I was little - had some idea that I was going to grow up and work for the government or something. So yeah, I know French, German, and Spanish. And English. Obviously."

Catie felt a stab of envy. If only she could learn that many languages; as it was, she struggled to remember the basic conjugations of regular French verbs. At least this would be her last year of struggling with it; she was eighteen, and her curriculum was almost done. She was nearly six months ahead of the other people in her co-op.

"Well, you speak English very well," she joked.

"It's about the only thing I _can_ do well," Alex replied in the same manner, and she rolled her eyes.

"That's not true. You wouldn't be here otherwise, the program's insanely hard to get into."

Alex set down his fork as a shadow flickered over his expression, darkening his eyes. "Yeah, I guess." He sounded distant, but the gloom passed from his expression in the next second and he stood, clearing his plate and utensils to the sink. "Can I help you clean up?"

Catie shook her head, pushing strands of hair out of her eyes. "I'll do it after I eat. Thanks, though -don't you have class soon?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "Your dad said there's a tube station a few miles away at . . . Tyson's corner, I think?"

Tube? Oh, right. The subway. "Yup. Did he offer you his bike?"

Alex nodded.

Catie swallowed the last piece of her pancakes and stood as well, dumping her dishes in the sink and leaning against the edge of the counter until it painfully dug into her hips as a wave of dizziness washed over her. "I'd offer you a ride but there's a ton of construction going on down there. Biking is way faster, it's only about a mile. You won't miss it."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Hey, let me give you my number before you leave so you can call if you need anything. D.C.'s a beautiful city, but sometimes the people aren't."

Alex gave a short, cut-off laugh. "I will."

Catie fell into the rhythmic lull of clanking dishes and running water as she washed all their plates and utensils, and the other stuff she'd used that morning. The pancakes were warming in the oven, and it was almost six o'clock. Time to wake up the twins and Agnes - the boys had co-op at seven, and Agnes had a therapy appointment at seven thirty. Catie resigned herself to a busy morning and tried to finish the cleaning as fast as she could, even though the dizziness hadn't abated. She took a deep, shaky breath as her lungs laboriously absorbed it. This was what her parents got for homeschooling their kids: A tired, overworked daughter, two hyper boys, and a little girl who needed counseling. And, of course, their collegiate son, who had managed to - well, no use dwelling on it now.

A twinge of guilt made Catie pause and stare at the window. The front yard was withered and dry from lack of precipitation, and she couldn't help but see the same decay in her wavy reflection.

The incident with Agnes, her youngest sister, hadn't been her parents' fault. If anything, it was Catie's. And the twins . . . well, they had it hard anyways, being identical and having very different interests. They tended to be treated like a single person instead of as individuals.

Catie stood on her toes to yank the curtains across the window, not wanting to see herself anymore. A familiar pressure pulsed at the base of her throat, somewhere between suffocation and nausea, and she coughed, feeling the familiar constrictions begin.

The last year had been hell on earth. First Agnes, then -

 _No_ , Catie told herself again. _Too early._

As she set the dishes out to dry and abandoned the kitchen for the upstairs, Catie couldn't shut off the cold voice inside her head that told her it would always be too early, too soon, to think about anything that had happened in the last year.

Well, maybe Alex would understand. Catie had recognized that look on his face, that fragile shadow: _Guilt_.

* * *

"Alex! Nice of you to show up!"

The salutation was belted out by a college graduate with hair that gave him a disturbing resemblance to one of the hobbits from _The Lord of the Rings_ : Sebastian Yerkes.

Alex forced a pleasant expression to his face despite the overwhelming urge to yank the styrofoam coffee cup out of Sebastian's hand and throw it at him. He was exhausted, and the child on the tube wouldn't stop screeching, much to the embarrassment of the mother and the displeasure of the other passengers. No matter how high the volume on his music was, Alex couldn't block out the child's screams.

"Morning, Sebastian."

Sebastian brandished a set of jangling car keys. "The car's ours, let's go."

"Go where?" Alex asked, slightly suspicious. Where were the other people? They _did_ work there, right? He hadn't seen Mr. Blakemore - well, _Agent_ Blakemore - all morning, perhaps because he was on another case. The American intelligence agencies were supposed to be insanely busy with the healthy mix of paranoia and a large territory that created more threats than people willing to carry them out - and more opportunities for damaging attacks.

"To find Christie Dome. Remember how Elise - Elise Baron, the blonde lady? - well, one of her informants said that Christie was found returning to her home this morning. We get to go bring her in - _and_ we get the car," Sebastian added the last part with extra emphasis, as if getting the car was the most important part of information that he had to offer.

Alex sighed and dropped his backpack on the chair behind his desk, which was already cluttered with papers and that envelope with Danielle's pictures in it. "Okay. What's the deal with the car?"

Sebastian gave him an incredulous glance. "It's FBI regulated, which means it's a _really nice_ vehicle, but more than that - the parking spot, Alex. You saw that monstrous parking garage on the corner, right?"

Alex nodded.

"Okay. It holds about seven hundred cars at any given time," Sebastian said as he gathered his things, including a black messenger bag, and strode briskly over to the door. "Finding a convenient parking spot is the same as searching for the lost island of Atlantis. Emphasis on _lost_. But this car, _the_ car, has a reserved spot on the ground level right inside the entrance."

Sebastian's explanation reminded Alex rather absurdly of Eagle, one of the men in the SAS Unit that Alex had been forced to train with and, more recently, work with. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd be in to, and had actually complained about a very similar parking issue that garnered more empathy from Ben Daniels instead of Alex. Alex couldn't bring himself to care very much about parking spaces and commute times, nowhere near as much Sebastian's proselytic enthusiasm, but maybe because he didn't live in D.C. and didn't have to deal with parking and driving every day.

As Alex trudged down the hallway in the silence left by Sebastian's enthusiastic explanation, he couldn't think of anything to say in reply. A thrill of anticipation ran down his spine because - because.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

He was _enjoying_ this.

Working with a team of people who seemed to be on the right track, the thrill of finding the first suspect and digging into their history - Alex, for all the times he'd cursed MI6 to hell and back, had been trained for this. Second day on the job, and he wasn't burdened with the clenching anxiety and apocalyptic stress that accompanied his other missions. Of course, parts of them had been fun. Sometimes he had even found himself entertaining the idea of working for MI6 as an adult, as a paid agent. . .

Yes, sometimes he had liked feeling like a hero, even if no one knew.

Then Jack died and Alex understood, finally, the grim reality that his uncle had lived with: spies don't get to be heroes.

They get a pile of the dead.

"Alex?" It was Sebastian, who'd paused by the lift with his finger hovering over the button.

Alex blinked, realizing that he'd been glaring at the carpet, and hurried over as the lift doors dinged open. "Yeah? Sorry."

"It's fine," Sebastian said with a knowing glance.

After a few floors, he spoke again. "I've read your file. The official one, at least."

Alex rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and prayed that the ride would end, or the lift would jam, or catch on fire, or anything to prevent him from having to answer that statement.

Sadly, nothing happened.

"Really."

Sebastian nodded absently. "Were you really fourteen?"

"Yes."

"Damn."

 _Well_ , thought Alex. _That pretty much covers it._

* * *

The woman's name was Christie Dome, and she was afraid.

Her knuckles were white where they were clutched around a steaming ceramic mug as she stood with her right foot slightly behind her left, leaning on the corner of the countertop as if it were a shield. She guardedly watched Sebastian with frigid eyes that were colored like the arctic sea. Her hair was dark, cut at a slashed angle from her shoulders that made her pale face take on an even more angular appearance.

"I can't tell you anything," she said through gritted teeth, making an almost imperceptible movement to lean away from Sebastian. "Please, leave my home."

" _You_ let us in," Sebastian muttered. "And we have footage of you witnessing a felony."

Something flashed across her face.

Fear.

"This is an international emergency," Alex said softly. _And we have authorization to hold you on obstruction charges._

She gave him a hostile gaze but her eyes flickered away when they met his, towards a bookshelf made of dark wood. It was sparse of any books but held several statues, one of which, a porcelain snow leopard, looked to have been recently broken. There was an ugly crack across the animal's neck where the head had once been severed; whoever had done the repair job wasn't very good at piecing things back together.

"I have nothing to tell you," she said in a flat tone. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Again her gaze locked onto the bookshelf.

Alex frowned, glancing back at it. Something wasn't right - it was almost as if Christie was afraid of the shelving.

The partially-mended leopard stared back at him with dull eyes.

Alex slowly walked over to the bookshelf and saw that the shelves were thick with dust - all but the second one from the top, where the thin layer of dust was smudged by two fingers and the imprint of a statue's base where the leopard had been slid back into position. There was something else too, a nearly invisible circular impression where something else had been set down on the dusty shelf.

Behind Alex, Sebastian cleared his throat. "Under the Convention of -"

"It's fine, Sebastian," Alex cut him off. He understood now, about the leopard and about why Christie looked as if she were standing at the gallows. "We can come back another time with an arrest warrant." He looked at Christie, who glowered at him. "You should leave her your work line, Sebastian. She can ring you if she changes her mind."

Sebastian gave Alex a questioning look and slowly removed one of his business cards from his lapel pocket and left it on the counter that Christie had taken shelter behind. Alex grabbed it, took one of the pens scattered around the surface, and scribbled something on the back. Then he held it out to Christie.

She took it, quickly scanned the back, and glanced back at Alex - surprise mixed with intrigue.

Alex gave her a grim smile and followed Sebastian out the door.

"What was that about?" Sebastian asked as he jerked their car to an abrupt halt at a traffic light. "We don't have time for her to grow a conscience, Rider."

"Did you see the way she was looking at that statue?" Alex replied. "It's obviously important to her - center of the shelf - but it wasn't repaired well at all. Someone else broke it and fixed it, not her. I think it was tampered with."

"Someone bugged her statue."

"Probably."

"Do you think it was that congresswoman that she works for?"

Alex shrugged, tucking his seatbelt under his arm. "Maybe. She _did_ witness a felony. Or someone else could have seen her."

"Well, she obviously knows about it."

"They probably warned her."

Sebastian shook his head and accelerated at the prompting of the car behind him, which came in the form of an obnoxious pulse of the car's horn. "This is moronic."

"Actually, it's very well thought out."

"Eh. So, any word on your sister's stalker?"

Alex winced at the phrasing that was uncomfortably reminiscent of Danielle's experience with one of the most influential drug lords in London. _Stalker_ didn't begin to cover it. " _Stalker_? I don't think it's that."

"Then what?"

". . . watcher?"

Sebastian snorted out a laugh. "Right."

"There's no reason for her to have a stalker. She's not the type. If it was some kind of crazed fan, the pictures wouldn't have ended up at the FBI."

" _Fan?_ "

"She's a pianist."

"Oh. A crazy fanbase, I'm sure."

"Sod off. And turn here," Alex said, reaching over to point to the left side of the intersection.

Swearing quietly, Sebastian tried to switch lanes but failed when the SUV next to them slowed down. There wasn't enough room between it and the other car for him to merge.

"I'll just drive around, the city's a grid. Where did you want to go?"

"I wrote the address of a cafe on the card in case Christie wanted to meet us there. Tidier than an arrest warrant."

"How'd you think of the statue being bugged?" Sebastian asked as he pulled the car around in a sharp turn onto a one-way street, making Alex brace himself against the car door.

"It's what I would have done."

* * *

The cafe wasn't in the best neighborhood; it was more of a diner, with an extensive breakfast menu and coffee that tasted like tar. It was filled by laminated tables and chairs with vinyl cushions, and several customers.

Alex and Sebastian only had to wait for a few moments at the cafe before Christie arrived, marching across the tiled floor in high heels. She sat down in the chair across from Alex and dropped a spiral-bound notebook on the table.

"Couldn't have picked a better meeting place? This is a _hole_."

Alex didn't answer in favor of pulling the notebook towards him and flipping back the front cover. The first page was covered in lines of cramped, tiny handwriting that he didn't have time to decipher. He quickly skimmed over the paper, catching a few here and there like 'wire' and 're-election' and 'campaign fund'. There was a date, too: November 12th.

The twelfth. . . that was two days ago, the same day that the body was found.

"Is your boss up for re-election?" Sebastian asked, having been peering over Alex's shoulder at the notes.

Christie nodded, her dark hair swishing around her face. "This year's a critical one for her. There's a high chance that the elections could change the majority party in the Senate."

"You were at the street," Alex said. "What did you see?"

She gave him another hostile glance and tapped her lacquered nails against the tabletop. "You're not from here, kid. Do you even know how politics works? No matter what the truth is, Janice -my boss, the Congresswoman- will find some way to dodge it, probably implicate _me_. I can't risk that." She paused for a second, appearing to gather her thoughts, then continued, "Look, everything I know is in the notebook. I started keeping records when things went downhill. There's no proof or anything, but I think someone international is funding my boss's campaign with a vested interest in having her in the Senate."

Sebastian's eyebrows flicked up, nearly disappearing beneath his unruly hair. " _Really_? What makes you say that?"

With an exasperated sigh, Christie snatched the notebook away from Alex and turned to the next page, jabbing her finger at a patch of yellow highlight. "A few days ago, she made me do a wire transfer from her account. Look at the other bank account number. It's Swiss."

Alex glanced at the long string of digits, twenty numbers preceded by an alphabetical identifier of the country of origin.

Something chimed on Christie's watch. She glanced at the time, quickly fumbled to shut off the alarm, and pushed back her chair. "I have a meeting," she muttered, pulling her purse back onto her shoulder. "Can't be late. You can keep the notebook."

Sebastian started to say something, but she beelined for the door, escaping before he had the chance. He looked slightly bewildered, shook his head, and glanced back at the notebook. "... _what_?"

Alex was also struggling to process what had just happened; they had tracked down Christie for information in a murder case, but instead found yet another corrupt politician and a scared senatorial aide. Despite the raging hostility that Christie radiated, Alex couldn't forget the look in her eyes when they had first arrived at her flat. No matter what her job demanded or what information she possessed and wanted to share, she was terrified.

"Should we look into this?" Sebastian asked.

Alex drained his coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste, and shrugged. "You're the American, you tell me. Is it legal to investigate a politician based on conjecture alone?"

"Usually not. Besides, we don't know if any of this is true or if Christie made it all up for contingency."

"Yeah."

"Is it like this in England?" Sebastian made a vague gesture towards the table. "Do you guys have this much red tape?"

"They like to pretend that I don't exist so it's never been an issue."

"Ah. I mean, a Swiss bank account can't mean that much, can it?"

Alex shrugged, not having the depth of knowledge about the American government that could give him any answers. "I'll research it."

"Sarah or Elise will probably do that," Sebastian replied. He stood up from his chair and pushed it under the table. "Speaking of which, we need to go back to the office."

Alex mirrored his actions without comment.

He was going to do his own research, and it wouldn't just be relegated to the internet.

* * *

Fortunately, the Senator's D.C. residence was one of the few historic homes in the district of Georgetown, the very place that Alex was supposed to be spending copious amounts of time at. Sebastian was right: someone else on Blakemore's team had already pulled up a dossier on the Senator. The only problem would be transportation - Blakemore had just told him to go home, and there wasn't a bus line anytime soon that would take him to Georgetown. Alex had checked the bus routes on his phone, and the nearest tube platform was five blocks away and didn't go anywhere near the Blakemores' neighborhood. How was he supposed to get back to their house?

Sighing, Alex slid his phone back into the front pocket of his jeans and set off down the streets, heading east in the vague direction of the towering Washington Monument. If nothing else, he could wander around for a few hours until Blakemore's shift was done.

The street was choked with cars, lines of them crammed between stoplights, a river broken only by the endless streams of pedestrians that crossed the crowded street in huddled packs. Streetside vendors were set up in carts and food trucks, beacons that parted the seas of people hurrying down the sidewalks. An elderly man with tinted sunglasses was selling pretzels that smelled enticingly salty; Alex paused, fishing a few American dollars out of his wallet, and bought one. The man gestured with one cocoa-colored hand to take a pretzel off the rotating warming plate, and it was then that Alex realized the man was blind.

Each of the wrought-iron lampposts lining the streets was crowned with a golden eagle, wings spread in mid flight. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from several storefronts on the crowded street; in the distance, the white dome of the Capitol building rose above the monolithic sandstone museums and offices.

 _Very patriotic_ , Alex thought, and he was tempted to take a picture of the eagle streetlights to send to Danielle, but he didn't want to mark himself as an outsider to everyone else on the street. He was careful to keep his pace casual, avoiding the temptation to crane his neck around and look at everything, and walked purposefully as if he had somewhere to be.

After a few blocks the tall buildings and brightly-colored storefronts gave way to an iron fence that was erected on a low brick wall, leading down the rest of the sidewalk as a barrier between the street and the expanse of grass on the other side. Soon both gave way, and Alex found himself standing next to a massive lawn in between two wide roads, each lined with museums and upscale restaurants. A few blocks ahead, the lawn was bisected by a perpendicular road, then continued towards the cordoned-off base of the Washington Monument spire.

Alex suddenly felt less inclined to spend the afternoon mindlessly wandering around when he could be doing something for the case or, more importantly, for the trial so that he could go home as scheduled.

The trial.

He had managed to forget about it for a few hours, what with tracking down Christie and everything that had followed, but now the thought of being in a courtroom made his stomach twist uncomfortably. The defendant had to be present at the trial - he knew that much, it was the same in most countries - which meant that he would have to lay eyes on Galen Troy.

Alex wasn't sure that he would be able to control himself around that despicable excuse for a human being. Troy's action at the Palace Theatre, one of London's iconic performance venues, had almost killed Danielle, Ben Daniels, and Wolf along with dozens of civilians. Some _did_ die, and since the official reason for the explosion and fire was a freak gas pipe bust, Parliament was limited in its ability to offer reparations to the families of the deceased. Officially, nothing had happened. It was a freak accident.

Officially, Galen Troy didn't exist.

Alex knew that he would never forget that night, never forget the feeling of red-hot flames lick his skin until it blistered, the ice-cold bullet's bite when it sank into his stomach.

Waking up in the hospital with more health issues than when he had been brought in, to find Danielle with her leg in a massive cast from hurting her leg on a stage light as she was trying to escape the theater and go for help.

Galen Troy had hurt so many people - innocent people.

And, oh, how he'd promised to do so much more.

Despite the relatively warm breeze, Alex couldn't ignore the chill that crept down his spine at the memory of Troy's voice, words whispered between falling plaster and crackling flames.

 _I'll make you beg for death, Alex Rider._

His leg bumped against something, startling him, and he noticed the bench that he'd inadvertently walked into. Alex sat down, finished the remnants of his pretzel, and pulled out his phone. He stared at his most recently added contact: Catie Blakemore.

" _Call if you need a ride or anything," Catie called, waving with her free hand as she held Agnes by the shoulder with her other. "I'll be out pretty much all day."_

Would calling her be worth it? There were only four hours left until Mr. Blakemore was due to leave his office, surely Alex could find something to do for four hours . . .

He also had no idea where he was or where he could go to find information on participating in federal criminal trials without raising eyebrows or awkward questions, and he didn't want to run down the charge on his phone to do research in case of an emergency.

Catie _had_ offered.

No, Alex couldn't waste her time like that.

But _four hours._ And he had very pressing matters to attend to.

Finally, with a sigh, he pressed the green call icon.

The line rang once before Catie answered. "Hey, Alex."

"Hi Catie. Would you mind doing me a huge favor? If you're busy, it's no big deal." Alex found himself drumming his fingers against his leg, an old nervous habit. He forced his hand into a fist. Why was he nervous? He had no reason to be.

"Sure," she replied, no trace of irritation her voice. "What's up?"

"Well, class ended two hours ago-" he felt another uncharacteristic stab of guilt at the lie "- and I'm kind of stranded."

" _Two hours_?" she sounded shocked. "Why didn't you call earlier? What've you been doing?"

"Well, some of us took the tube into the city. The others went back to their dorms. I'm in the middle of the grass near all the museums," Alex said, figuring it was best to sound as much like a tourist as he could.

Catie laughed, a pretty sound like someone playing a major arpeggio in one of the upper octaves. "The Washington Mall."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"Sure, sure. Anyways, I can come get you - that's what you're asking, right?" Somewhere in the background, other people were talking, and Alex could barely make her words out.

"Yeah. . . thanks." he internally grimaced, feeling incredibly selfish for asking her to drive into the city to get him.

"I'm actually pretty close to the Mall -guys, _shut up_ \- so I'll be there in . . . like, fifteen minutes?"

"That's fine. I'm by the . . ." Alex glanced to his right, at the nearest building with a large sign that was nearly illegible from across the street, ". . .Smithsonian Museum of Natural History."

"Awesome. See ya there." Catie hung up, leaving the dull dial tone.

Alex shut his phone off and started walking towards the sidewalk so he would be able to see the approaching cars. The flow of pedestrian traffic was rapidly petering off after the lunch hour rush, which meant more places to sit and wait, which Alex tried to do but found himself too jittery. He needed to run, bike, do anything physically exerting before his muscles eroded even more. After his pancreas had been damaged by the bullet wound, Alex had found himself constantly overcome by unshakable fatigue, a side-effect of the interim time period between his body adjusting to the new insulin pills that he had to take and when the insulin actually became effective. He knew he was lucky that he didn't need an insulin pump yet - the higher concentration of insulin would cause him more harm than help, according to the doctor, even though the insulin pills weren't proven to actually be very effective. _Very_ reassuring.

 _Well, I haven't passed out yet,_ Alex thought to himself, smirking bitterly down at the concrete beneath his feet.

He still had nightmares almost every night of the accident that had ravaged his body; so often, in fact, that he was used to waking up in a cold sweat from dreams of flames, bullets, and corpses scattered around the ground. The most persistent vision was a burning graveyard that bore the tombstones of everyone he knew.

Something clenched in his chest at the thought and suddenly Alex could smell petrol and burning wood.

He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing his forehead, and rolled his shoulders back, swinging his arms out to stretch. The fabric of his sweatshirt pulled tight against his chest and restricted his movements.

Alex sighed again. This was why he shouldn't be alone: He had too much time to think and too much time to remember things that were best considered late at night when there was nothing better to do and no one better to see. He tried to pull his thoughts back to the present, just in time because a car door slammed a few metres away and someone called his name.

Catie waved, standing next to a silver Honda that bore several scratches across the front bumper. A sudden gust of wind sent her hair flying into her face as Alex hurried over to her. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, grimacing, but grinned at him. "Hey!"

"Hey. Thank you so much for the ride." Alex didn't even have to fake the gratitude.

"Oh, anytime," Catie said as she opened the door in the driver's side. "You actually rescued me from socializing with my Mom's family. They're all awful."

Alex laughed, slouching down in the passenger seat, and glanced over at her. He was expecting some kind of humor in her face, but her jaw was set like stone. "Really? That bad?"

"Yeah." she sighed, wrenching the keys in the ignition. The car's engine reluctantly sputtered to life. "Hey, do you mind if I make a really quick stop on the way home? It can wait if you're tired -"

"No, it's fine," Alex reassured her. "Honestly, I don't care where you go as long as I can sit in the car." He could use the time to text Danielle back - knowing her, she was probably a little concerned that he hadn't contacted her in almost twenty-four hours. He was half-tempted to text Ben Daniels too in case he'd ever had a similar case from MI6, but he was reluctant to infringe on the anxious days that were preceding the arrival of Ben's first child. According to Danielle, Ben was almost catatonic with stress and his wife was actually the calmer of the two. Somehow, Alex didn't doubt it.

" _Same,_ " Catie said as she twisted around to glance out the car's rear windshield before pulling out into the street. "Except I actually have to get out of the car and do adult things."

"I'm nineteen; I'm doing adult things just by sitting here."

Catie impatiently pushed a few wayward pieces of hair out of her eyes. "You don't look that old," she said.

"You wound me."

"It's the hair," she said, glancing at him with a wide smile.

Shaking his head, Alex leaned back against his seat and crossed his arms. Pretending to be a normal university student was easier than he had anticipated. Or maybe he and Catie just happened to get along very well.

Without turning his head, he allowed his gaze to flick over to her for a sliver of a second. She held the steering wheel firmly but not in a death grip, and the firm set of her jaw had

relaxed into a gentler, softer expression like the transition from a lively cadenza to a demure adagio passage. Her hair was falling out of its braid, framing her face in the afternoon sunlight.

As Alex stared out his window, he couldn't help but think that Catie Blakemore was very pretty, almost distractingly so.

He took a few moments to compose his thoughts and strengthen his resolve to focus on the case and the trial and those things only, allowing them to take priority over interacting with his host family.

Alex knew he didn't need any more distractions.

* * *

Catie's quick stop turned out to be at a pharmacy. She disappeared inside the folding doors, leaving Alex some time to check his phone. He never did reply to his sister.

Danielle had sent several pictures of a music piece that she was working on for one of her classes with questions about harmonic melodies and variations, which Alex tried to answer as fast as he could.

There was another text from Ben Daniels, alias Fox: _**CHECK THE NEWS.**_

Bemused, Alex opened one of the American news apps that he'd downloaded before his trip had started to keep up with American politics.

The first headline caught his eye.

 _ **High-Profile Criminal Escapes Custody, Disappears**_

He felt a lump of dread sink through his stomach and settle into his bones, knowing before he clicked on the link what the article would say because this was _his_ trip and _his_ luck.

 _Washington - 9 a.m._

 _At approximately 10 p.m. on November 14th, a convicted criminal escaped custody of the Federal Detention Center in northern D.C. Galen Troy was being held on charges of espionage, treason, and murder, and was formerly employed by the Central Intelligence Agency._

* * *

 **A/N: H** i! Sorry for the late update; college things have been keeping me very busy.

A few quick notes -

1\. The French that Catie's listening to means "I've told you, you have the same smile on your face each time you lie. You thought you'd get away with it, again and again easily." It's from a song called Brise by Maitre Gims - yeah, my computer won't do accents, sorry :( It's a really great song! As an AP French student, I can say that music is an excellent way to build listening comprehension. Also, putting effort into the class would also be a good idea because I certainly should be *cough*

2\. Fun random fact: The scene with Catie in the morning is probably going to be the only scene I'll write from her POV; I was trying to write it with Alex but it wasn't flowing right.

3\. Other characters from the series will be coming in! I know it seems like I'm using a lot of OCs, but A) I was a novelist before I was a fanfic writer so pls forgive and B) the others have to get to Alex in a way that's somewhat realistic, which will take a bit of plot progression.

4\. Catie's character is based off one of my good friends, who has a similar name and five younger siblings, one with autism, that she basically takes care of for most of the week.

5\. Reviews are never ever frowned upon!

 **Review Replies:**

 **Spiritsong -** Oh my goodness, thank you so much! I hope you enjoy!

 **Format Freak** \- It's totally fine! I'm pretty used to harsh criticism, playing the violin and all lol. Awesome, I'll make those changes, and thank you _so_ much. Pleasepleaseplease feel free to keep adding any notes/grammatical points - anything to improve, right? Or should I say _write_? (I'm so sorry. I love puns. Especially bad ones.)


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** haha wow look it's been less than two weeks wouldya look at that there miracle

Just a side note; in case anyone can't tell (Can't remember if I've already mentioned this) I used to live in D.C. It comes back as a frequent character in many of my stories.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! You guys make my week :)

* * *

The car door swung open as Catie fell down behind the steering wheel with a sharp, irritated sigh and tossed a crinkling paper bag towards Alex.

"Could you hold this for - hey, are you okay?"

Alex tore his eyes away from the damning news article and curled his hand around the bag, feeling a cylindrical object inside. He turned off his phone, dropping it into the wheel well, and took a deep breath before forcing a neutral expression onto his face. "Yeah. Everything's fine."

Whether she believed him or not Catie didn't ask again, which Alex was grateful for because he wasn't confident that he could have denied it again. "Here," she said, holding out her hand. "I'll take that. Thanks."

Alex handed her the bag and she tore it open, holding it upside down to let a cylindrical piece of plastic-coated metal fall into her palm. The tube was shaped like an _L_.

 _Don't think about the article. Forget it. Forget that Galen Troy ever existed._ "You have asthma?" he asked.

Catie nodded as she slipped the inhaler into her purse. "Yeah. It's always worse in winter."

"Ouch."

"I'll survive. Hopefully - kidding, it's not a problem," she hurried to add when Alex glanced at her.

* * *

Alex met Catie's younger brothers as soon as he entered the house. One moment he was opening the door and stepping inside, and the next he was standing back out on the porch with an American football in his hands and a throbbing pain in his forehead.

Something rubbery struck him on the forehead as soon as he walked through the front door. A boy of about thirteen with unruly red hair stared at him from the opposite side of the room, his mouth agape.

"Sorry," the boy muttered sheepishly, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "I thought you were Vince."

Alex lifted an eyebrow as he tossed the football back to the kid. "I'm Alex."

"Yeah, I figured. I'm Nicolas."

Catie squeezed by Alex and stepped through the front door. "Alex? What's the hold up - oh, _Nic_ , not again!"

"I'm _sorry_!" Nicolas threw his hands up, allowing the football to bounce against the floor. "How was I supposed to know-"

"Because I'm over here!" cried a different voice as another small projectile was launched across the living room, revealing itself to be a shoe as it hit the wall with a loud thud, and another red-haired boy with wild hair and wire-rimmed glasses jumped up from behind the couch.

" _Vincent Xavier Blakemore!"_ Catie shouted, her eyes flaring wide with exasperation. "Go outside, or so help me _God_ -"

The boy with glasses, who Alex noticed was identical to Nicolas in every way except for those, scurried outside.

"Hey," he said to Alex on his way off the porch.

"Hi," Alex replied, feeling slightly dazed by the sudden burst of activity.

"Does that apply to me?" Nicolas asked, and he quickly cowed at the look on Catie's face and hurried after his brother.

Alex trailed after Catie as she marched into the kitchen and slammed her purse down onto the table with a sharp, irritated sigh. A line appeared between her furrowed brow.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Alex."

"It's fine!" he replied quickly. "Don't worry about it."

She shook her head. "I love them both, but they're little terrors. You have no idea how lucky you are that your sister's close to your age."

 _You have no idea how lucky you are._ Well, _that_ was a phrase Alex never expected to hear about himself.

"Well, that has its own issues," he said after a few seconds.

"Oh yeah?"

"We argue a lot. Usually over stupid stuff."

"Mhm. At least she doesn't throw shoes across the living room."

"Not recently."

Catie laughed as she turned away and started a pot of coffee heating. Something scuffed in the doorway to the sunroom, opposite Alex, and he saw a little girl with curly copper hair hovering at the edge of the kitchen floor, her face drawn with worry.

"Catie?" she asked.

Catie spun around, her hair flying over her shoulder. "Agnes! I thought you were at your friend's house!"

The little girl shook her head. "No. That was an hour ago. Is that _Alex_?"

"Yeah," Alex said before Catie had a chance to reply. "I think I met you a few days ago, right?"

Agnes slowly nodded. "You were awake in the middle of the night."

"Jetlag."

"What's that?"

"When you travel a lot and it makes you tired."

Seemingly satisfied with that explanation, Agnes retreated back into the other room, the hem of her oversized t-shirt dragging on the floor.

"So do you have any more siblings?" Alex asked warily. How many people _lived_ in this house? Every time he was there, someone else appeared. At this rate, he would have to start locking the door to his room every time he left, because there was a rapidly increasing chance that someone would inadvertently stumble across something like his fake biography or the collection of camera tools that he was planning on employing later.

"No," Catie replied, looking highly amused. "You seem good with kids, though."

"I tutored."

"Oh, for what?"

"Uh. French." _Violin lessons. Because I go to an internationally-renowned school for music. Did I mention the spying, too? Yeah. Just another day in London._

Catie opened her mouth, about to reply, but Alex hurried to cut her off: "Hey, I'm sorry to ask, but do you have a camera?"

"Yeah." Catie set the coffee pot, now full, back on the counter and crammed the lid onto a thermal cup.

"May I borrow it?"

"Sure. I'll go get it."

"Thanks." _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Alex was already regretting asking to borrow Catie's - he hadn't wanted the hassle of bringing his own through TSA and customs, as he had altered it in several ways that he was sure were illegal in the United States - but he couldn't afford to delay any longer. Galen Troy had escaped from prison.

It was only a matter of time before he started looking for Alex.

* * *

 ** _That Evening. . ._**

When the GPS on his phone told him that he was one mile away, Alex pulled his bike into the grass just past a sign for Vienna, Virginia, jumped off, and pushed it into the woods. He quickly shoved it under a large clump of bushes and saplings, then dragged some fallen branches on top of it for good measure, just in case someone came along after him. The last thing he needed to worry about was replacing Mr. Blakemore's bike, especially given the circumstances of his, ah, _borrowing_ it.

He switched over to the manual function on the GPS and adjusted his earbuds so he wouldn't have to pull out a glowing phone every few seconds.

The rest of the trek to Senator Fields' house was much shorter than the suggested mile as Alex took a shortcut through the woods, forging a straight path through the dense layers of brush. Thorns tore at his sweatshirt, fraying the sleeves, and scratched long, jagged lines into his track pants. So much for durable nylon. His backpack often got tangled in wayward tree branches that either snapped back to hit Alex's head or broke off.

There was something almost peaceful about being in the middle of the woods in a foreign country nearly fifteen miles from the only people that he knew. Peaceful isolation, except for being dressed all in black with a backpack full of camera equipment.

He didn't even want to _think_ about trying to explain that to anyone.

After about ten minutes, the woods started to thin, revealing house lights glimmering in the ritzy neighborhood up ahead.

Two minutes later, Alex was crouching at the edge of the woods looking at the backyard of Janice Fields, surrounded by a chorus of crickets and other nocturnal animals. It was an opulent lawn, well kept with pesticides and other treatments because it was the only patch of green on the entire street in the middle of winter.

No one actually used the lawn - that much was easily obvious from the lack of anything out there except plain, green grass - and it continued straight up to the base of a towering two-story home. There were only two levels of windows, but the ceilings must have been massive on each floor. The roof was covered in dark tiling and extended up into a trapezoidal point with four pipes, each protruding from one of the corners, and a smaller section of roof that looked like a turret from an extension on the left side.

The house was nice, Alex supposed, much like the ones in the neighborhood where the safe house that he'd had to stay at a few months ago had been located, but it was also a fortress. No matter how the windows had been intended to function, they were excellent guards against intrusive photography: the lowest ones were obscured by heavy curtains, and the top ones were tinted but too high to reach. There were no trees or structures outside that one could climb to get a glimpse into the upper floors.

Alex sighed, slowly straightening. He couldn't tell if the lights were on inside due to the thick curtains.

 _Well played, Senator_ , he thought to himself, slowly edging out into the yard.

Two large fences were erected on either side of him, separating most of Senator Fields' yard from her neighbors, which helpfully covered Alex's excursion to her back door.

He carefully balanced on her toes to peer through the window in the top of the door and, seeing that most of the first floor - the parts he could see, anyways - was dark, he dropped to a crouch and deftly slid his backpack off his shoulders.

From there, it was only a matter of withdrawing one of the slender metal pieces in his camera bag, inserting it into the lock, and forcing it open. There were three deadbolts too, each with a different keyhole, but those were easily bypassed with a flat nail file.

For a Senator's house, the security was pretty lax.

Alex paused. His heartbeat thundered like a frantic drumset inside his chest, his senses kicked into overdrive, and he felt his extremities tingle as a surge of adrenaline shot through his blood.

 _Is there an alarm system?_

Probably. He could bypass it with a little work. Well, maybe. It would depend on what the system was. . . he hadn't dismantled an alarm in almost six years.

Damn. _Should've researched that._

That wasn't what was causing his body's sudden, instinctual response. With his heart still racing, Alex glanced over his shoulder.

The woods were completely still. There were no unusual noises - in fact, everything was silent.

 _Silent._

Not even the crickets sung.

Alex, grabbed his backpack threw himself to the ground, landing on the grass with a force that stole the air from his lungs, as the door imploded.

Of course, the door didn't actually explode. It had been shot with a bullet that caused the wood to splinter and the inset glass window to fracture with the force. Shards of glass fell onto the grass as Alex yanked his legs up, twisted to the side, and sprang to his feet with his backpack tucked under his left arm between his body and the side of the house. He had to protect the camera: it was Catie's, the accessories were his and had nothing to do with actual photography. As he sprinted around the side of the house he realized that the fence suddenly made a sharp perpendicular turn and blocked off the way to the front of the house. The only gate was barred shut with a heavy chain that glinted in the outside lighting from the house and a formidable-looking padlock.

Another bullet punctured the wood of the fence two centimetres away from Alex's right arm as he took a running leap, grabbed the top of the fence with his right hand, heaved his backpack over the side, braced his feet against the body of the fence, and hauled himself over the top. The sleeve on his sweatshirt caught on the pointed top of one of the fence posts as he fell.

He landed hard, his right shoulder and side striking the stone patio on the other side of the fence with a sickening thud. Rolling over, he staggered to his feet, scooped up his backpack, and jogged out into the street. Hopefully the fence would give him a few extra seconds; it definitely wouldn't be easy to surmount with a gun in tow.

Alex quickly crossed the wide street into the front yard of another opulent home and ducked behind a row of bushes next to the front sidewalk. Waves of blazing agony crashed over his shoulder, making him wince as he eased his sweatshirt off.

One of the sleeves had a hole torn through the shoulder.

 _That must have been what caught on the fence,_ Alex thought, but then he noticed that the hole went all the way through, symmetrical on both sides. If the fabric had been torn by the point on the fence, one hole would be bigger than the other.

It was a bullet hole.

Despite the damp sweat that made his t-shirt cling to his body, Alex suddenly felt cold. He stuffed the t-shirt into his backpack, which he carefully eased over his arms before standing up and stepping back out into the street.

His footsteps crunched on the road as he walked, keeping a casual posture despite the ever-increasing pain in his shoulder, with his hands resting in his pockets.

There were no unusual noises to indicate a pursuer.

In fact, there were no noises except for the buzzing of the crickets and the rustlings of other nocturnal animals.

The shooter must have gone back to wherever he came from via the woods.

A horrible thought occurred to Alex: how long had he been followed? Did the shooter know where his bike was? Would he be lying in wait for an ambush?

Cursing himself for even thinking of this stupid, stupid plan, Alex resigned himself to the five-mile walk back to the tube station.

After a mile with no incidents, Alex saw the road sign near where he had left his bike and slowed his pace. If the shooter was still around, he'd had plenty of opportunity to ambush Alex again. He was walking down the middle of the road, pretending to be a neighborhood resident, and it was the middle of the night. No one was there to witness any shooting.

Maybe the shooter had disappeared.

Alex took a chance and dove into the woods. The pile of brush that concealed his bike hadn't been disturbed.

Gingerly favoring his right side, Alex extricated his only legal mode of transportation and wheeled it back to the road.

It was going to be a long trip home.

* * *

Alex rode his bike around the side of the Blakemore's house all the way around to the deck, where he left it propped up against the railing and reentered his window the same way he left: through the window.

This time, though, the table wobbled as he balanced on the edge to get a decent drip on the windowsill, and his shoulder throbbed laboriously as he pulled himself up to the edge. Swinging his left leg over the edge, Alex barely managed to avoid hitting the carpet face first, a noise that would have surely woken someone up.

Alex found the mere thought of standing to physically drain the remainder of his motor faculties, so he rolled onto his back, flinging one arm over his face in the process, and stared at the ceiling.

 _I really need to start exercising again._

Ever since his second bullet wound, Alex hadn't kept a strict regimen for working out, especially with an intense summer schedule that included concerts in Strasbourg, Vienna, and Amsterdam, which meant getting a (real) passport and resigning every single secrecy clause that MI6 could think of to be sure he wouldn't defect or reveal some fatal flaw in national security at a classical music concert.

All in all, he just hadn't had _time._

That was what he told himself, at least.

* * *

"You like you got run over by a bus," said Sarah Janys the next morning as soon as Alex walked into Blakemore's office at the FBI.

"Thanks," Alex replied sullenly.

"Does this have anything to do with a certain ex-agent escaping from prison?"

"Nope."

She gave him a once over but didn't ask anything else, instead handing him a stack of manila folders and a highlighter. "Do me a favor?"

Alex silently took the material and retreated to his desk. So far, it had been a successful morning: He had managed to avoid running into Catie or her siblings, and Mr. Blakemore was . . . well, gone. Alex hadn't seen him in two days.

 _He's probably busy on some other case._

Hadn't Mr. Blakemore mentioned something about his wife? Alex hadn't met Mrs. Blakemore yet - nor had he seen any sign of a woman around their house.

" _Mom and Dad left early for work," Catie said, keeping her eyes fixed on the glass that she scooped into her hands. "I make breakfast for everyone."_

Something - something about that, stated yesterday morning, just didn't seem _true._ From what Alex had seen, Catie basically parented her younger siblings.

Well, it wasn't his business, and he had better things to do . . . like go through the mass of papers that were currently sitting on his desk.

He sighed. _Great._

Alex was finally granted a reprieve from highlighting names, connections, and phone records when Elise Baron stood up from her desk and started yelling.

" _Sebastian Yerkes, you little-_ "

Sebastian's head jerked up from where he was slumped over on his laptop, his glasses crooked. "What?"

"You _know_ what! This screensaver? _Really_?" Elise flipped her bleached-white hair over her shoulders and turned her PC around, revealing the familiar stamp of a hammer and sickle in black emblazoned on a red background.

Alex rolled his eyes, giving Sebastian what he hoped was a very unimpressed look.

"It goes way back," Sebastian started to explain himself, as Elise rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh. "Remember when you were the TA for Louison's class?"

Clearly patronizing him, Elise leaned against her desk, arms crossed. "Yes?"

"And we did the debates on governmental theory."

"Your point?"

"You staunchly _defended_ Communist governing theory after I had finished a beautiful, eloquent speech on the merits of pure democracy, exposing what you thought were flaws in my arguing." Sebastian's dark eyes widened with feigned innocence.

"Whatever," Elise muttered. "Just get it off. I can't even log in."

"I'll get around to it."

" _Sebastian!"_

"What?" he held his hands up in self defense. "Alex and I have somewhere to be!"

"We do?" Alex asked.

" _Yes._ Christie emailed me. She wants to talk."

 _Finally._ Alex stood up, shoving the papers on his desk aside, and yanked his jacket off the back of his chair. "Let's go."

"I'm assuming there's a price for your notebook," Sebastian said to Christie, brandishing the wrinkled loose-leaf pad. The cover was bent up on the back, probably from when Alex had shoved it in his backpack.

Christie smiled humorlessly, her eyes glinting like daggers of ice. "You're smarter than you look. I want immunity - from _any_ of the shitstorm that's gonna follow your press release."

"What press release?" Alex asked, tearing his eyes away from the violinist busking on the opposite street corner - the man's form was horribly off, his violin should be under his jaw line instead of under his chin.

"You've got to be _kidding_ , Britain. It was on the front page today - you're investigating Senator Janice Fields." Christie's freshly-painted nails impatiently drummed against the tabletop and the corners of her lips turned down - agitation? "You had to have seen it."

"I don't have a reason to scour your papers at five-thirty in the morning," Alex replied.

Christie pulled out the paper that she held tucked under her arm and unfurled it, thrusting the front page like a banner into Sebastian's face. He blinked, leaned away, and took off his glasses.

His face darkened as he read the article until he was glowering at the newsprint. He snatched it away from Christie, swearing, and handed it out to Alex, who quickly skimmed the article.

... _An unnamed contributor from London's MI6 is aiding the Federal Bureau of Investigation in searching for the conspirator behind the murder of the CEO of a Saudi Arabian oil company, whose body was discovered two days ago outside the Saudi Arabian embassy._

Alex curled his hand into a fist around the offending article, crumpling the newspaper up into a ball. _Unnamed contributor._

"What do you want?" he addressed Christie. "Safe house? New identity?"

Her mouth was a slash of crimson across her face as she shook her head emphatically. "No. Just keep your regulations and interrogations away from me. Whatever happened, I didn't do anything wrong."

Alex couldn't help but notice that her eyes flickered to the left as she finished her sentence and stepped back, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"Consider it done."

" _Wonderful._ Now, if you don't mind, I have a career to build." Christie stiffly adjusted the strap of her black purse, pulling it tighter across her shoulder, then spun on one shiny stiletto heel and stalked away.

"We have a leak," Sebastian muttered. "Someone must have broken in."

Alex squeezed the newspaper into an even tighter ball. "How do you know it wasn't someone on Blakemore's team?"

" _No one_ would do that," Sebastian emphatically stated, shaking his head once. "No one."

"Well, _someone_ knew I was from MI6," Alex said. "It's pretty obvious that I'm from England, I think, but MI6?"

"Maybe someone overheard something in passing."

"I doubt that. What are the odds that _this_ -" he waved the balled-up newspaper at Sebastian. "Airs the day after _Galen Troy_ escapes from federal prison?"

"Elise _did_ get a gag order for the press," Sebastian reluctantly said with a heavy sigh, pushing himself away from the wall. "I'm guessing Blakemore's already seen it. Miles will be going postal. If you hear a small explosion, don't be alarmed. That's his temper."

Alex gave him a half grin. "Should I be surprised?"

"Let's go back to her apartment." Sebastian ran a hand through his hair, which did nothing to make it lay flat. "She's an awful liar."

"Why there?"

"To look around."

"Isn't that illegal?"

Sebastian's expression dulled. "We're running out of time, Alex."

* * *

As it turned out, neither Alex nor Sebastian saw Christie Dome again that day. She didn't return to her apartment, and Alex finally pointed out that two college-age guys waiting in a car in the parking lot of sketchy apartment block was about as productive as anything they could be doing back at the office.

"You hate stakeouts," Sebastian said.

"I never said that."

"You make it, like, fifteen minutes before you start glaring."

Alex pushed his hair back, shrugging, and unbuckled his seatbelt. "I'd rather be _doing_ something useful."

"Blakemore left a message. He wants you to go home," Sebastain said as he reached down and switched the car's gears. "Until they find Troy."

"They won't find him."

"What makes you so sure?"

An odd sense of foreboding chilled Alex as he stared out the window for a few moments, watching a young mother struggle to balance four bags of groceries and two small children while unlocking the door for her suite. "I don't think he'll give up."

* * *

 _ **Two Days Later**_

The bathroom sink had a film of stagnant water that wouldn't drain, perhaps clogged by the toothpaste, soap, and products used by the four Blakemore children, who shared the upstairs bathroom.

Alex Rider stared at his watery reflection in the basin, reaching up to touch the ends of his ragged, uncut hair.

He felt stripped of an inheritance that he hadn't realized was his.

Blakemore had suggested that Alex do something to alter his appearance - after all, anything could help, as long as it wasn't drastic enough to draw the attention of the kids - so Alex had cut his hair.

At least it didn't fall in his eyes anymore.

He had also been confined to the house for the last two days while all manner of intelligence agencies descended upon the Washington D.C. area in search of Galen Troy.

This was supposed to be his trial and Alex's case.

Now Alex had neither, and MI6 had remained stubbornly unresponsive to probes by the FBI.

Had he given up his only security for nothing? He was hoping to help, to do something to find out who killed the Arabian, but that case seemed to be progressing at a snail's pace, and now he was stuck doing absolutely nothing.

"Alex?" the call of his name was followed by a gentle knock on the open door, and Alex straightened up, twisting around to look over his shoulder.

Catie hovered in the doorway, wearing a grey sweatshirt and faded jeans with threadbare, torn rips in the knees. Her hair was pulled back into a single braid, the end of which she tugged with apparent agitation.

"Yeah?" his voice rasped. He cleared his throat.

"This is going to sound really weird, but I think there's someone watching our house."

Alex raised his eyebrows. "Show me."

She hurried downstairs to the kitchen, Alex following, and yanked open the window curtains. Leaning up against the edge of the sink, she pointed at a silver Nissan parked across the street. The driver was wearing large sunglasses that concealed most of his face, a wide hat, and had a magazine spread open over the steering wheel.

"He's been there for almost an hour," Catie murmured.

"Get down," Alex hissed, crouching and pulling Catie down next to him as the driver's head turned in their direction. "Just pretend he's not there."

" _Pretend_? Alex, I need to go get groceries - I don't want to leave if someone's watching me."

"Actually, that's a great idea. You go out. Maybe he's waiting to see if the house is empty."

Catie shut her eyes for a moment, rubbing her forehead and leaning against the cabinet door. "But then you'll be here alone. Do you think he's a burglar?"

"I'll be fine," Alex said. "We'll see. Come on, you need to go." He stood up away from the window and reached down, grabbing Catie's hands and pulling her to her feet.

She grabbed a set of car keys off the table, shoved them in her pocket, and walked over to the front door. "What if he follows me?"

"Stay calm and call the police."

Catie paused for a second, tense, before opening the door and stepping out onto the front porch.

Alex hurried back to the kitchen window as he heard a car door slam and waited until he saw Catie's car turn out of the driveway. For a few moments, the man across the street did nothing. Alex had begun to think that the man in the car was harmless and there for some reason that had nothing to do with Alex or the Blakemores, but as he watched, the man got out and swiftly crossed the street.

Alex felt his blood turn to ice. He dragged one of the chairs from the kitchen table over to the door and shoved it under the knob, then sprinted back up the stairs, taking them three at a time. When he reached his bedroom, Alex shoved everything he could into his backpack and zipped his suitcase, clenching his hands into fists to keep them from shaking with nervous tremors.

He sat back on his heels and listened.

Downstairs, the doorknob jiggled. The sound was quickly followed by a muffled _zip_ of a zipper opening, then the telltale scrape of a lock pick.

Alex grabbed his suitcase and backpack, got to his feet, and tried to avoid the creaky patches of the upstairs floor as he made his way to the bedroom at the other end, the one that Catie shared with her younger sister. Once inside, he shoved the door wide open to make it appear empty.

He stowed his suitcase in their closet behind a rack of dresses, then, as he heard the front door open downstairs, dropped to the ground and wriggled under one of the twin beds.

Staring at the slats and mattress that were less than an inch away from his eyes, Alex tried to focus his breathing into steady intervals. His backpack was shoved towards the opposite wall, and Alex reached out and pulled the bedspread down until it fell all the way to the floor.

Heavy footsteps walked in purposeful strides across the downstairs floor. From what Alex could hear, the man walked into the living room, crossed through the kitchen into the sunroom, then paused.

When the crashing started, Alex knew exactly what was going on. The man was ransacking the house, searching it for any trace of whatever information he was looking for.

Suddenly, Alex's phone bleated.

He managed to shove his cramped arm into his pocket to mute the ringer but checked the message, craning his neck and angling his phone towards his face. It was Catie.

 _Is everything okay?_

 _ **No**_ , he quickly texted back. _**Don't come home yet.**_

Then he turned the device off and started to wait.

The footsteps suddenly stomped up the stairs, their owner clearly irate, and Alex heard a dull _thud_ as the man shoved open the door to the twin's bedroom. After a short pause, the man backtracked to Alex's room and, finding it empty, released an irate sigh and clomped down towards Catie's bedroom, where Alex was hiding.

Alex held his breath and found himself praying that he wouldn't be discovered. A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his arms and hands, giving him the irrepressible urge to wipe them on something.

The man paused in the doorway and lingered for a few moments before turning around.

As seconds stretched by into minutes, Alex felt his legs began to cramp from staying pressed against the floor for so long. He resisted the temptation to move or try and roll over, as he hadn't heard anyone go back down the stairs.

After about five moments, he heard a muffled curse and the man descended the stairs, stomped through the kitchen, and slammed the front door behind him.

Alex forced himself to wait for ten more minutes before finally crawling out from under the bed - Catie's bed, he realized, seeing a picture of her and another girl on the nearby nightstand- and carefully walking over to the top of the stairs. The house was silent, but just to be certain that he was alone, Alex entered the twin's catastrophically disarrayed bedroom and peered out their window. It faced the empty street; the silver Nissan had disappeared along with the man inside it.

As Alex waited for his phone to boot up so that he could tell Catie to come back, he couldn't shake the deeply unsettling feeling of having once again misjudged his enemy. He thought that he would have more time before Galen Troy came looking for him, but the man himself had just been in the Blakemore's house. Why there?

It occurred to Alex that perhaps the same person who had leaked the story of the Arab's death to the newspaper had been bribed or coerced into working with Troy, and would know where Alex was staying.

That thought was even more unsettling.

Maybe Troy's visit had nothing to do with Alex - after all, _Agent_ Blakemore had been his former partner when they both worked for the CIA - but Alex knew that to be a dim possibility, with the depth of the man's grudge against him.

When Catie got home, the color drained from her face at the state of the lower floor. "It's a _wreck_!" she gasped, placing her left hand against the wall to steady herself. "And the chair's cracked!"

"Yeah," Alex said. "That's my fault. I shoved it under the doorknob when the guy started to cross the street."

Catie's gaze fixated on his. "Where did you hide?"

" _Uh_." Alex felt his face coloring. "In your room, actually. I grabbed my stuff and shoved it into your closet. . . figured it was the last place anyone would look for me."

Catie let out a shaky laugh as she pushed herself away from the wall and crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. Her skin still carried a dull pallor. As they both walked into the chaotic kitchen, Alex couldn't help but notice how she stayed closer to him than usual, their shoulders nearly touching. He was suddenly seized by a reckless urge to do something moronic like take her hand.

But her face remained open, rounded, eyes glimmering even though she'd had quite a shock. Catie was someone who oozed vitality and life and bounced back from crisis with relative ease.

Alex was none of those things. Even though she was only a year younger than him, he felt separated by a lifetime. No one could span that distance, that distance across the horrors he had seen, done, and brought upon the people he cared about.

So he silently pulled out a chair for her and offered to clean up the coffee that had been spilled on the floor, despite her assertions that she would do it later.

"Who was that?" she asked quietly after a moment.

Alex straightened up, feeling his shoulder twinge disagreeably with the movement, and discarded the coffee-saturated paper towels into the bin. "Have you ever heard of a man named Galen Troy?"

* * *

 **Review Replies**

 **Josh -** Oh my goodness, thank you so much! That's such a huge compliment and it honestly made my week. Glad you're enjoying! And, yes, I promise other characters from the AR series are coming in soon.

 **Format Freak -** Yes! Very respectfully :) Okay, footpath, I will remember that, and the paragraph break was a random mistype. Thank you! I'll have to check out that TV show as soon as I can. And I'm glad that Catie's POV wasn't too awkward or misplaced. And, I should correct that to say I was _almost_ a novelist - my friend and I wrote a full-length story together and had an acceptance from one of the agents we had queried, which was incredible, but my friend ended up having to move states and moving forward with publishing would have been ridiculously complicated after that. But yes, I do write original work, and I've been doing that way before I wrote any fanfiction, so I guess I'm used to creating original characters that are hopefully believable?

 **Guest -** Ah! Thank you! I'm so glad that you liked the last chapter - I was worried it was a little long lol


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:**

1\. Hello! Yes, this is a filler chapter (kind of), but please bear with me on this one because the next chapter is already written! (Wow, me being productive, unheard of) I was going to make everything one chapter, but it would have been a massive 17,000+ word chapter so it's being broken up into two :)

2\. A character mentioned, Adrian Carter, is making a cameo from the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva (Amazing books. Spy thrillers. Highly recommend).

Thank you for reading and reviewing! 3

(And honestly, I've been in a really good mood for writing all week, probably due to a) spring break and b) the vast amounts of coffee that I have consumed)

* * *

Catie shook her head, holding her balled-up sweatshirt in front of her like a shield. "No."

"Did you hear about that guy who escaped from prison?" Alex asked, sitting down across the table from her.

"Was that him? Galen Troy?"

"Yeah, that's his name." Alex glanced down at the table, which was strewn with papers and open books, leftover from Troy's destructive rampage on the lower floor. "He was the guy in the car."

Catie's fingers curled into her sweatshirt. "You're kidding. Alex. . ." she watched him plaintively, as if waiting for a punch line that wasn't coming.

"No. Do you have any idea what a convict wants with your family?" _Me, probably._

Glaring at the floor, Catie took a few moments to respond. Alex could practically see the gears turning in her head, the scales and risks balancing out inside her mind as she considered a quandary that he fully understood. She had no idea that he was aware of her dad's true profession, but maybe that was why Troy had broken in. Her face twisted for a second and her eyes suddenly glistened with unshed tears.

"I know your dad works for the FBI," Alex said impulsively. Anything to stop her from crying.

Catie's head jerked up. Her hand flew to the end of her braid again, tugging. " _What_? No one's supposed to know that!"

Alex cleared his throat and forced himself to look her in the eye as she stared at him accusingly, making his stomach twist. "That's actually why I'm here, Catie."

"No." she laughed hollowly across the table, narrowing her eyes at him. "Don't lie, Alex Rider."

"I'm not, Catie," he said, finding himself unable to look at her.

"I can't deal with you right now," she whispered after a moment, and he heard a scraping noise as she pushed her chair back. Her footsteps, lighter than Troy's, ran up the stairs and down the hall, and Alex winced when the door to her room slammed.

He let out a heavy sigh, slumping forward over the table with his head in his hands, and silently cursed every single thing in his life. _Listen to yourself. Who would ever believe you?_

* * *

After he decided on a plan, Alex hauled himself up from the kitchen table and started to clean up the mess downstairs, hoping that he could finish before the younger Blakemore children - or either of their parents - got home.

The sunroom was a mess: a low coffee table had been overturned, spilling a stack of magazines, crayons, and other art supplies onto the floor, and the potted fern in the corner was missing most of its dirt, which was spilled onto the floor as Troy was evidently searching for something. Alex righted the table and cleaned up the art supplies, including a spilled cup of paint water, then found a vacuum in the kitchen pantry and used that to fix the plant and dirt situation. One of the sketchpads had been bent back, wrinkling the pages, and as he tried to smooth them out he noticed the drawings inside. Crudely done in crayon, there were several depictions of a girl with long red hair sitting in a dark chair in between two black human silhouettes inside a grey room without any windows. The longer he stared at the picture, the more disturbed Alex felt. It was obvious that the girl was a prisoner, but who could have drawn that?

He flipped the page back and saw the shaky handwriting making a signature on the back: _Agnes Blakemore._

Wasn't that Catie's younger sister?

Alex frowned as he replaced the sketchpad on top of the table. He would ask Mr. Blakemore about that later - could be important.

The rest of the cleaning actually went relatively quickly after that, more a matter of straightening and organizing things than cleaning. Despite the disarray in the living room and the fact that the desktop Mac was on, nothing seemed to be severely damaged. Clearly, Troy had been searching for something instead of just intending to scare the Blakemore family.

Alex pushed the long couch back into parallel alignment with the TV on the opposite wall and smoothed out the oriental rug on the floor, finally straightening up and wiping his face on his t-shirt. He knew that he shouldn't be sweating this much from pushing a few pieces of furniture around.

When he turned around to go back to the kitchen for a glass of water, Catie Blakemore was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were red, her face blotchy with tears, and her hair was coming loose from its braid. She'd changed clothes, now wearing black sweatpants and a pale purple shirt. Something dangled from her left hand: her inhaler.

"I'm really sorry," she said, her voice raspy.

"It's fine," Alex replied awkwardly. "Uh - I guess this is probably really weird."

"Yeah," she gave him a small smile. "Are you a spy, then?"

"It's a long story. And complicated." _You really don't want to know, but I'd be glad to tell you because if a psychotic murderer is gonna search your house you should probably know why._

She walked over to the couch and sat down, curling up against the armrest, with her chin propped on her hands. Clearly, she was ready to listen.

He kept his narrative to events that had occurred within the last year or so, the story of meeting Danielle, his adopted sister, how she ended up with his last name, and how Galen Troy had made several attempts to kill Alex and K Unit, the band of SAS Men he had been stuck with in training. Catie seemed to put the rest together without him saying anything else - that Alex had done other missions besides the one that killed Troy's wife, and that the four years in between his last mission and meeting Danielle were not happy ones.

"So you were supposed to testify against Troy, but he escaped?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you in danger?"

"Yes."

"Are you really a violinist?"

"Yes." Alex shifted his weight, reaching up to massage his injured shoulder. "I am."

Catie fell silent with a pensive expression on her face. After a few moments, she asked, "You've been working on something with my dad, right? It's okay, I won't ask what."

Alex nodded.

"Okay." Catie blew a heavy sigh out and leaned against the armrest. "Well, you should know that he hasn't been around for the last two days because he's been in court. I guess that makes it hard for you to work?"

"We've been getting by. The others at the office aren't awful."

Catie raised her eyebrows, highly amused. "Have you met Miles yet?"

"Miles Chenoweth?"

"The one and only."

"Then yes. I've had that . . . unfortunate experience."

Catie laughed at that. "I'm sorry."

"So, why is your dad in court?"

Her face fell. "He's in _divorce_ court. Mom walked out on us eight months ago after something happened. She's filing for legal separation now."

That explained a lot, then: why Catie seemed to do much of the cooking and driving for her younger siblings, and why she seemed so adamant about how awful her mom's side of the family was.

Alex hesitated before asking his next question, not wanting to make Catie more upset than she already was, but her answer could be important. "I hate to ask this, but does the thing that happened have anything to do with why your sister draws pictures of herself as a prisoner? I saw them in the sunroom."

Catie nodded with a bitter grimace. "She was kidnapped by a drug gang from Venezuela that was operating here. My Dad was undercover as a buyer for a while."

"Did they hurt her?" Alex asked, immediately concerned. The _last_ drug crime he'd had to deal with had almost ended catastrophically.

"No, thank God. She's physically fine, but she has regular counseling appointments. A nine year old doesn't process that stuff the same way that we do."

"I think anyone would have trouble processing that."

Catie absentmindedly picked at a fraying thread on the couch, twisting the fiber around her fingers. "Definitely."

A heavy silence fell between them for a few minutes until Catie pushed herself off the couch. "What are you going to do about Troy?"

"You should tell your Dad that he came by today."

Her eyes widened. "Me?"

"Yeah. He'd take it better coming from you."

* * *

 _ **Eight Days Later**_

Mr. Blakemore had been livid when Catie told him about Galen Troy's search of their house, backed up by Alex, and was one phone call away from putting his entire family into the Witness Protection Program. Luckily, Alex managed to talk him down from that particular cliff by saying that a safehouse didn't keep him or Danielle safe the last time that Troy had tried to kill Alex.

Alex had also neglected to mention to anyone the incident at the Senator's house last week, where he had been shot at by an unknown person and was almost caught doing something very illegal. The last thing that Mr. Blakemore needed was something else to think about when he was fighting his wife for custody of their four children and trying to solve a case that was attracting international attention - decidedly the _wrong_ kind of international attention, as Alex had received a very irate message from Ben Daniels about allowing his involvement to be leaked to the papers.

Within the next week, Danielle, Ben, and Wolf would all be arriving in America. MI6 had courteously agreed to send over two of their personnel who had worked with Troy last year, all the while denying their knowledge of any operative working with the FBI. The CIA had also contracted an interest in the Arab's shooting and decided to send in their head of clandestine operations, Adrian Carter, to oversee what was rapidly becoming yet another trans-agency debacle of communication and jurisdiction.

Catie had been busy working on a paper for her literature class - something about analyzing the original Sleeping Beauty fairy tale in conjunction with a song or poem from the modern era. She had mentioned something to Alex about a rather depressing song that she had chosen because it captured the emotional sleepiness of modern society. He had no clue what she was talking about, as he'd never read _Sleeping Beauty_ , but offered to proofread her first draft when she was done.

Alex was going through the printouts of Christie Dome's time table that showed her movements from the last time they'd met to just over an hour ago. A few days ago, Miles had managed to remotely install a tracking virus on her cell phone. That was the first time Alex had seen the normally dour agent express any kind of satisfaction. So far, Alex could tell that Christie frequented a pub downtown with several of her colleagues, and her most common errand for the Senator was over to the office of a large oil company, which happened to be headquartered right outside D.C. Proper.

He heard the telltale jingling of car keys behind him, and glanced up as Catie came into the living room with her lanyard dangling from her neck. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"For what?"

"To pick up your sister! Her flight arrives in forty-five minutes."

Alex stared at the clock. Was it three already? He got to his feet, setting his papers aside, and tugged on a thin blue jacket. "Sorry. Lost track of time."

"You forgot that Danielle was arriving today." Catie's words were a statement, not a question, and she lightly punched him in the shoulder on their way out the door. She unlocked the doors of Mr. Blakemore's SUV. "Dad's letting me take the big car for highway driving. He worries."

"Don't tell her," Alex muttered, referring to forgetting Danielle's arrival time. "She'll never let me hear the end of it."

"That might be amusing."

"You can speak at my funeral, then."

Catie turned the stereo to one of the local pop stations as she drove and immediately burst out singing when the next song came on. It had been popular in England too; even Alex, who rarely listened to pop, knew the lyrics. Probably because Danielle had become obsessed with the song a few weeks ago.

" _Maybe we found love right where we-_ Ah!" Catie slammed on the breaks as a motorcyclist pulled out nearly a metre in front of her, dangerously close to a wreck.

"You good?" Alex asked, rubbing his neck where the seat belt had dug into his skin at the jolt.

"Yeah," Catie said shakily, reaching out and turning off the radio. "Sorry - wasn't paying attention."

"I'm pretty sure it was his fault. No one forced him into the intersection."

She shrugged nonchalantly, but kept her hands clenched around the steering wheel for the duration of the drive to Dulles Airport.

* * *

" _Alex!_ "

Alex staggered backwards as he was hit with fifty kilos of blonde hair and boundless energy, feeling the person in question fling their arms around his neck and squeeze tightly.

"Hey, Dani," he said, his voice muffled by her hair, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She was warm, almost feverishly so.

When she pulled away, he got a good look at her.

Danielle Rider was relatively short; her head only came up to Alex's shoulder. Her hair was golden, the color of barley fields, and fell over her shoulders in long waves. She looked considerably less pale than the last time he'd seen her, which meant that she was taking her vitamins - they'd had a row about that, and she hadn't spoken to him for nearly a week afterwards - on time and as prescribed. She was gaining weight too, a good thing because she'd been all elbows and knees when Alex had first met her as a result of living with a mother who didn't bother to parent. At all. The sleeve of her t-shirt - from the Haydn festival last year, when she'd placed second for performing one of his concertos - didn't come down far enough to hide the curving scar on her left shoulder.

"You cut your hair!" she exclaimed, reaching out to smooth a few wayward pieces back from his forehead. "Makes you look older."

" _You don't look that old."_

" _You wound me."_

" _It's the hair."_

Alex glanced at Catie, who grinned from beside him. "I've been told."

"You must be Catie," Danielle said with a pleasant but vaguely unsure smile, adjusting the straps of her backpack. "Alex told me about you."

"Oh, dear lord. I'm not that bad, I promise," Catie laughed, nervously pushing a piece of her hair behind her ear.

Danielle grinned. "I'm sorry for leaving you with him for a fortnight."

"He's not _terrible_ ," Catie said, exchanging the kind of look with Danielle that two people used when sharing some kind of inside joke.

" _Well_ ," Alex interjected before they could get any farther on that line of topic. "We should probably get going before the traffic hits, yeah?"

"Good idea," Catie said.

Alex carried Danielle's suitcase to the car, hanging back as she and Catie started chatting. As he lifted her luggage into the trunk, he saw a black shadow flit by out of the corner of his eye but was gone by the time he turned to look. Thinking he just imagined it, and that his paranoia was starting to get out of control, he climbed into the backseat of Mr. Blakemore's SUV and resigned himself to an hour of D.C. traffic with Catie and Danielle talking about topics that he couldn't contribute anything to.

Danielle started talking about her recent piano tour that she had taken with her best friend and a few others from their chamber. They had done a series of live performances, both in theatres and on the streets, over the course of two weeks. She spoke softly but animatedly, practically glowing with excitement.

"That's _so_ cool!" Catie exclaimed, shaking her head. "Sounds like so much fun."

"Yeah," Danielle said. "It was . . . but we were really tired too, and performing was really stressful."

"Really?"

"Definitely. So. . . do you do any sports or art or stuff?"

Alex tuned out the rest of their conversation after that, content to lean against the window and watch the cityscape go by. The airport was, to an extent, removed from the rest of the city. Most of the buildings nearby were short and derelict, quickly deteriorating into the urban poorness that characterized the outskirts of most large cities. Rows of subsidized housing apartments stood off the highway, starkly grey against the bright sky, and a gaggle of small children kicked a football around in one of the parking lots. Next to the apartment buildings, a run-down auto repair shop was advertising a discount on oil changes even though the tarmac glistened with spilled petrol, a sign that any oil changes might be lacking oil.

 _Petrol._

Alex shut his eyes. He knew that should be important - petrol. . . petroleum products? Petroleum exports? Why did that sound so familiar?

He quickly tried to remember any mention of oil in the case so far, and realized that Christie Dome's most frequent errand for her boss was visiting one of the American oil companies headquartered in D.C. But _why_ one of those companies? Why not something far more interesting, like technology or science?

"Because there's money in petrol," Alex mumbled as the thought hit him.

"What?" Catie asked, catching his eye in the rearview mirror.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Sorry."

Alex returned to his thoughts. He would have to ask Mr. Blakemore or Sebastian about policies from the recent presidential election - any information about that online was notoriously unreliable - but maybe there was some kind of political motive behind visiting the petroleum company and the dead Arab . . .

When the idea hit him, Alex almost slammed his head into the window. _Of course._ How could he be so stupid? How could anyone at the FBI have missed this?

Well, they were thinking politically, which seemed to be the most likely option. Saudi Arabia had no shortage of enemies in diplomatic relations, even though some might be allies in policy, and assassinating someone from the Muslim Brotherhood on the president's front porch would be highly effective in weakening public opinion as well as the perceived potency of the entire administration.

What if the motive wasn't political, but economic?

* * *

As soon as they arrived back at the Blakemore's house, Alex muttered some excuse to Catie and Danielle about work he had to do and hurried inside in search of Mr. Blakemore, who was working on his computer in the kitchen.

"Hey," Mr. Blakemore said, glancing up as Alex entered. "Everything okay?"

"I had an idea." Alex quickly explained his theory and as he talked Mr. Blakemore reached out, grabbed his phone, and had hit _dial_ before Alex finished. His face was set in hard, grave lines and he suddenly looked much, much older. Stress had a habit of doing that to a person.

After a few curt words to the person on the other end of the line, Mr. Blakemore severed the connection and turned back to Alex. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Figure what out?" Catie asked, huffing as she hauled one of Danielle's suitcases in the door.

Danielle dropped her other luggage and grabbed the end of that suitcase. "Thanks, Catie - sorry!"

Alex immediately felt bad for not helping his sister - what was wrong with him? He was distracted, but the case wasn't the most important thing right now, was it? Galen Troy had escaped and he had to keep Danielle safe - did she even _know_ that Troy was out?

"Here, I'll take that," he said, taking the larger suitcase from Catie. It was rather heavy, much more so than his.

Catie turned to Danielle. "Do you mind sharing a room with my sister and I? She's nine - if it's too much trouble, you can have my bed. I'll just sleep on the couch."

"No, you can have mine and I'll take the couch," Alex said.

Danielle shook her head, making her wavy hair fly over her face. "It's no trouble! I'll be fine."

Alex quickly delivered Danielle's stuff upstairs, and by the time he was finished, Sebastian Yerkes had arrived at the Blakemore's house. He was standing in the kitchen with a mug of coffee, looking seriously concerned.

"Hey," he said to Alex, not looking up from his drink.

"Hey." Alex sat at the table. "Any information on the senator?"

Sebastian sighed heavily and set his drink down on the table. "Unfortunately, yes."

"She's on the Senate committee for energy," Blakemore said grimly. "They're lobbying against the President's agenda to procure more local oil-"

"Stuff we make, stuff Canada drills for, et cetera," Sebastian interrupted.

Alex nodded and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. "Which would severely curtail American business with OPEC."

"Exactly."

"Aren't you one of the world's largest petroleum producers? Why do you do _anything_ with OPEC?"

Blakemore was about to reply when the front door flew open with a bang and admitted the twins, who stampeded through the kitchen with a trail of muddy shoe prints on their way to the backyard.

"Let's go to the office," Sebastian suggested. "Your family is here."

"The twins won't understand," Blakemore replied. "And Agnes is at a friend's house."

"What about Catherine?"

"Catie knows," Alex said.

Sebastian's eyes widened. "How'd that happen?"

"Well, Galen Troy broke into the house last week, so I had to tell her."

" _What_?"

"OPEC," Blakemore said loudly, interrupting, "is complicated. We produce tons of oil, but we have to export it somehow to make a profit from it. There's also the infrastructure, and gasoline, and plastics factories."

Alex easily saw his point: America, a vast country, had an increasing need for petrol in some form or another for manufacturing, gasoline, or transportation. They couldn't keep all that they made, but had to have enough profit to afford to continue manufacturing.

"Russia also has a vested interest in keeping OPEC happy because they're backing a pipeline through Syria, Iraq, and Iran," Sebastian added as he pushed his glasses up.

"So, Senator Fields is on the senate committee for energy and regularly sends one of her assistants to an American petrol company. A man from one of the founding countries of OPEC ends up dead, witnessed by the same assistant." Alex sighed heavily. He'd never expected _this_.

"And he was one of _your_ informants," Blakemore said, giving Alex a glance. "When are your colleagues arriving?"

"Two days, I think."

"Okay. They can cough up the records of your involvement with the Arab - his name is Masoud al-Siddiqui, by the way. In the meantime, I'll get Elise to sic one of her informants on Christie."

"You could just get her to do it too, you know. She can defend herself - best accuracy record for the shooting range, you know."

"If she doesn't need to be involved, she won't. It's a conflict of interest."

Sebastian coughed. "Well, I'm going into the office," Sebastian said. "It's Saturday; the place should be deserted."

"I have some things to settle here," Mr. Blakemore said as he stood up. "I'll be there in about an hour."

Alex stood as well. "Do you want me to go with Sebastian?"

"No. Spend time with your sister."

When Blakemore and Sebastian left the kitchen, Alex sat back down, falling back against his chair. He didn't know very much about OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, except that it was founded by Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and a few other countries and that the organization was essentially a commune of petrol production, prices, and tariffs that controlled most of the petrol that was funneled into Africa. In terms of current policies, however, Alex knew nothing.

He heard someone on the stairs, and soon Danielle appeared in the doorway. She had changed into sweatpants and a large t-shirt that hid the scars on her shoulders.

"What was that about?" she asked quietly. "OPEC?"

"You heard?"

"I was coming downstairs, but I heard you talking with those two guys and decided to wait."

Alex pushed his hair out of his eyes. "The thing we're working on."

She bit her lip, tugging it between her teeth. "The _thing_?"

"It's fine. Everything's fine. Don't look so worried."

"You're the human version of that meme with the dog surrounded by fire."

"Shut up."

"No." Danielle slid into the chair across from him and leaned forward with her arms on the table. "Have you checked your phone at all in the last week?"

"Uh. Maybe once, a few days ago?"

She gave him a look, her mouth twisted into a frown. " _Alexander._ "

"I've been busy!"

"Well, the Daniels' baby was born!" Danielle pulled her phone out and found a picture of a tiny baby with tan skin and a mess of brown hair swaddled in a pale blue blanket, showing it to Alex. "And I was going to stay with Clara - we had everything figured out - but Luke and Ben wouldn't let me go." she shrugged with a smile. "I feel awful, though. I need to go to university and get out of their way. Luke really does look like a wolf, you know - that's a good name for him."

 _Tell me about it,_ Alex thought to himself. "So, what did they name the baby?"

"Arthur Jameson Daniels."

"That's . . . quite a name."

"I know," Danielle giggled. "But he's so cute. And loud. Very loud."

"I bet."

"So, Catie's really nice," she said offhand, but he caught the glance she was giving him.

"Yeah," he agreed suspiciously.

She began to say something, but stopped when Catie appeared in the doorway, having jogged down the stairs.

Catie had changed clothes too into a long buttoning jacket, jeans, and boots. "Hey," she said. "I'm taking the kids to the ice rink downtown. Wanna come?"

"Sure," Danielle said, standing. "Let me go change."

"No thanks," Alex replied. "I've gotta do some work."

Following a flurry of activity as Catie dragged her twin brothers in from the backyard and argued with Agnes, who steadfastly refused to go ice skating, Catie and Danielle finally managed to get the twins out the door. Agnes obstinately crossed her arms over her chest, her feet planted on the ground.

"I'm not _going_ ," she shouted. "I don't want to!"

"Agnes, you love ice skating," Catie coaxed.

"I'm tired!"

"I'll watch her," Alex reluctantly offered, having heard the entire struggle, and the grateful look that Catie gave him suddenly made the prospect of watching her youngest sibling seem much more gratifying.

"Thanks, Alex," Catie said with a warm smile on her face as she tightened her ponytail and shut the door, locking it behind her.

As soon as the door was closed, Agnes turned around and ran into the kitchen, looking up at Alex with a bright smile. "Thanks, Alex!"

"No problem," he said, somewhat bemused. "Just . . . don't burn the house down, alright?"

She laughed brightly and hurried into the sunroom. He heard paper crinkling and figured that she was drawing again, so he retrieved his laptop and a few folders to look through that were supposed to be at Blakemore's office.

Sitting in the living room, he couldn't help but wonder how his life had changed so much in three weeks. A month ago he was playing gigs at various places around London and preparing himself for a trial that was going to be hell on earth, and now he was babysitting a small child and working on an assassination case in a very different manner from how he usually went about completing his missions. Five years ago, he was a kid being thrown up against organizations of highly intelligent, powerful adults. It was enough for several lifetimes - sometimes he felt like he had lived ten lives in almost twenty years.

He was liking the way that the FBI organized their cases and operatives into teams, with different skill sets among the members. MI6 probably did something similar, but Alex had always gotten the impression that they were very much an every-man-for-himself type of operation. The Americans weren't as intense either - not every case was life or death, and they had a better system of CIs, the criminal informant network that decreased the amount of agents who had to go undercover into various crime syndicates. There also wasn't any evidence of any of the American agencies blackmailing a teenager into doing their work for them.

 _The FBI does different stuff though,_ Alex thought to himself as he scanned another page of Christie Dome's phone records. _Internal security vs external._ MI6 dealt with international affairs, so they had license to be a little more intense.

Alex sighed. He wasn't getting any work done. Usually, he didn't mind research very much, but he couldn't manage to make himself focus.

He had been on edge ever since Galen Troy had broken into the Blakemore's house. Since that incident, Troy had gone underground. There was no sign of him from either the FBI or the CIA, and the news channels had nothing to report. Had Troy known that Alex was at the Blakemore's house? Was he watching them long enough to see Alex through the window, or was his appearance completely unrelated?

Alex didn't know. He hated not knowing, especially now with his sister in the same, crowded house.

Light footsteps pattered through the kitchen and Alex quickly shoved the papers back into the folder as Agnes' head appeared in the doorway. "Alex?"

"Hey," he said.

"What are you doing?"

". . . homework."

She pursed her lips. "Can I sit with you?"

"Sure." He was surprised.

Agnes curled up on the opposite end with her head leaning against the armrest, unconsciously mimicking Catie's usual posture in that spot, and tugged a fleecy blanket over her legs.

Alex was debating whether or not he should do anymore work or just give up and find something else to occupy his time, even though the possibilities for the latter option were limited because he couldn't leave the house to do something like trail Christie or sneak off to the Senator's house again.

Thunder rumbled outside. Within a few moments, rain was pouring out of the dark sky, lashing against the windowpanes in sheets that were impossible to see through. The storm had come on quickly, but didn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. Alex groaned, flipping his laptop shut with the manila folder stuck inside it.

"I hate thunderstorms," Agnes said quietly from her corner of the couch.

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded, rumpling her coppery hair. "It was raining when I got kidnapped. Catie said she told you about that."

"She did. Do . . . do you draw that a lot?" Alex asked, already knowing the answer to that. Maybe what happened to Agnes was somehow connected with the press leak, or to Troy. . .probably not, though. Too far apart to be coordinated.

"Yeah. The bad men."

"I was kidnapped once."

She sat up, interest sparking in her eyes as she tugged her blanket tighter around herself like a coat of armor. "What happened?"

Alex gave her a very concise explanation of his capture by Razim and Julius Grief, carefully watching her face for signs of fear or distress. He didn't want to make her more upset than she already was. "And then the bad men hurt one of my friends. They killed her, actually, because I wasn't useful." _Not yet, anyways._

Agnes' pale blue eyes widened. "They said they would kill me if Daddy didn't come. I heard them."

"But he did, right?"

She nodded rapidly and shifted position, making something rustle. Brandishing a stack of crinkled papers stapled together, she held it out to Alex. "Catie left this out. You said you'd read it, right? She says it's her Monster Lit Paper."

Alex took the sheaf from her and upon skimming the first page realized that this was Catie's _Sleeping Beauty_ paper - or a draft of it, anyways, because the phrase 'Monster Lit Paper' was scrawled across the top in red ink. His gaze landed on a paragraph about halfway down the page:

 _In_ _Sleeping Beauty_ _, Princess Briar Rose is put to sleep by a curse that was cast at her birth when she pricks her finger on a spindle, bringing about an effect similar to getting bitten by a poisonous snake. The quest to liberate her ends up with a twofold purpose; Briar Rose, or Aurora, is in her sleep saved from death, but saved from deathlessness when she wakes, which provides an interesting commentary on the limits of mortality and human willpower -_

Alex stopped reading there, suddenly overcome with a horrible feeling of impending danger. He checked his phone, but there were no messages to indicate that something bad had already happened.

 _A poisonous snake . . . the leak to the press . . ._ Alex cupped his head in his hands. He was trying to remember something . . . something familiar. . . he'd just thought of it.

" _It'd be a conflict of interest."_ Blakemore had said that, referring to his colleague Elise's involvement in this case. What did that mean? Did Elise and Troy have a history? Or was that referring to the Arab's assassination?

"I don't like snakes," Agnes said suddenly, breaking Alex's concentration.

He stared at her - had she read his mind? - but she frowned down at her thin fingers, laced together on her lap. "Why not?"

"They hide in the grass."

In the grass.

In plain sight.

Feeling unsettled and disturbed, Alex went into the kitchen to make coffee. The premonition of approaching danger didn't go away.

"You're imagining things," he told himself, hoping that was true.

* * *

 **Review Replies:**

 **Oceanlilly -** Hi! Haha, I'm glad you stuck with it! I actually wasn't sure about this idea either when I first started writing because it's a very unusual AU. Well, Danielle is in this chapter, and she will hopefully be making frequent appearances in the next chapters. Thank you so much! 3

 **Format Freak** \- 1.) Honestly thank you so much for even bothering to review with grammatical points because I really really really appreciate it and it helps me write and you're amazing God bless, I will go in and fix everything sometime this weekend! ;; 2) yes! Vienna, VA is a suburb of D.C. and it's basically an 18th century village smashed into shopping malls! Very interesting place. And yes, my dream career is writing, I've wanted to do that ever since I was in first grade, but in college I'm going to take more of a journalism track because that's a marginally more employable degree. Thank you so much for reviewing!

 **Josh** \- I'm glad everything read well because I wasn't sure about a few parts! Unfortunately, I don't have any other place where my writing is available, mainly because most of my writing is unedited, but I have been considering starting a wordpress with some of my writing so if that happens before I finish this fic I'll have something about it on here.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Hey! This chapter has been sitting in my doc manager for almost a week, but I don't know how much farther I'll get this week because somehow my eyelashes got stuck to my left eye today and now half my vision is blurry as heck. There was also an accident in the biology lab involving heating cracked glassware over an open flame, my lab partner not paying attention, and my bare arm, now covered in cuts and HCl burns. Gotta love that bio life :')

Reviews are always welcome :)

* * *

The feeling didn't fade; in fact, it worsened as the next few weeks dragged on with an excruciatingly slow pace. Once again, the authorities were mystified with Galen Troy because he had simply disappeared. No one seemed to have any idea where he went, and no one seemed inclined to find out beyond the circle of CIA and FBI agents that Alex was working with. He was starting to doubt that Troy would ever be found - usually if someone was missing for this long, they weren't coming back.

Alex was half-tempted to think that Troy was dead, killed by one of his former associates or someone he had put in prison during his tenure at the CIA, but his gut knew better. That unshakable certainty that danger was coming didn't show any signs of abating.

When Ben Daniels and Wolf had arrived a few days back, Alex hadn't seen them. They'd gone straight to a hotel in downtown D.C, met by Mr. Blakemore and Sebastian, and were apparently setting up surveillance around Christie Dome's apartment. Since then, Alex had run into Ben once, congratulated him on the birth of his son, and tried to get away as soon as possible. He liked Ben Daniels but felt guilty every time he saw him.

Ben had dragged Alex out of the burning theatre when Alex had been shot and burned, risking his life and fatherhood. When Alex survived, he knew that he would forever be indebted to Ben.

He tried not to let his thoughts distract him from training; he'd thrown himself back into the _krav maga_ , figuring that if he could get his body to cooperate with _that_ , any other kind of combat would be easy. He'd already gotten distracted once and had paid the price mid-flip when his arm had banged painfully onto the deck outside.

Danielle and Catie seemed to be getting on rather well; they were always laughing about something, at any rate, especially when one of the twins attempted an ambitious backflip on the back porch and ended up headfirst in one of the bushes, pride damaged, but otherwise okay.

"They like you," Alex had said to Danielle, teasing her. "Boys do stuff like that to impress you."

"Do they offer to babysit a girl's younger sister if they like her?" Danielle had replied, grinning at Alex.

He hadn't returned to the topic. How could he explain that he was just trying the be . . . well, he didn't know what, exactly, so he didn't bother trying to explain.

Other than laughing at the antics of Catie's twin younger brothers, Danielle and Catie found plenty to do - Danielle was welcomed into Catie's group of friends, which Alex had so far managed to strategically avoid in order not to bring any more questions upon himself, and frequently went out with them to do things around the city. As glad as Alex was that Danielle was having fun and making friends -if he was being honest, she seemed happier here than she ever had in London- he would have preferred if her social life didn't prompt people to ask about his.

One day, Catie finally succeeded in dragging him out to see the museums on the Washington Mall, which Alex remembered from the last time that he was there, and he had accepted Ben Daniels' invitation to meet at one of the restaurants in the area. That way, he wouldn't have to try and find transportation into the city some other time.

Alex was struggling with being a tourist; he felt like he should be _doing_ something useful, something for the case . . . Danielle had said that he was being obsessive, and she probably had a point, but he couldn't help it. The urge was like an itch. He couldn't relax.

"Stop being a spy and look at art," Catie said, elbowing him as they wandered through a permanent exhibit of 13th century Byzantine icons.

"Ssh," he muttered.

She wandered over to one of the icons, mounted on the wall with a placard beneath it that gave a short description of the work and the artist. The painting itself was done on some kind of organic panel with oranges and burgundies; the subject was a woman in a dark blue robe who stared off to the side of the image with a chilling expression of profound sorrow.

"Look." Catie pointed to a line of italicized text on the placard, and Alex moved closer to read it. "The Master of Franciscan Crucifixes. No one knows the real name of the painter."

"Huh."

She tugged the cuffs of her ivory blouse over her hands, bundling her long black coat in her arms. "It's cold. Let's go to another gallery."

Alex stared at the icon now that he was closer. The woman's eyes were piercing, incredibly detailed for 13th century art.

The placard opened with a quote: " _The woman who weeps, for the one she loved most has been killed."_

Alex hurried after Catie, seeing her disappear through the door into another gallery, as he felt a cold vise close around his lungs and arms, like chains.

Something bad was going to happen.

He could feel it.

* * *

Alex could tell that Catie loved D.C. because she hadn't stopped smiling ever since they arrived. The tension was gone from her posture and her shoulders slumped, relaxed. She blended into the crowd of college students and federal contractors on lunch break, sitting at an outdoor table at one of the streetside cafes with an air of childish excitement. Her hair hung loose around her face, blowing gently in the faint breeze. Her eyes danced as she stared off into the streets packed with people and cars, sharp in look but vacant in sight.

Sitting across from her, Alex scanned the street for Ben Daniels, who was supposed to meet them at the cafe for lunch.

Catie leaned forward with her elbows braced against the table. "The guy behind our table is watching you."

Alex picked up his glass of coke - on ice, as was the odd American preference - and glanced at the wavy reflection in the glass of the table behind him.

The man wore wraparound sunglasses and a blue and white striped running jacket. His hair was white but not indicative of age; he was either albino or used a substantial amount of bleach for disguise.

"Should we leave?" Catie asked softly.

Alex shook his head. The jogger was probably completely uninterested in them. Having done an extensive check for surveillance before sitting down, Alex was confident that they weren't being followed or observed. He knew that Catie was nervous too, even if she did her best to hide it around the twins and Agnes. She was most likely imagining things, allowing her mind to run away down paranoid streets . . . Alex could empathise.

He had managed to calm the roaring intuition down to a dull murmur, an irritating thought that nagged at his mind but was easily suppressed.

Being with Catie was fun; she was an excellent tour guide, in good humor, and possessed a wealth of random trivia about the city's history ("My Dad _was_ a history professor. It's in my blood.") She flung her hand out to point at various things and sights, like a kid trying to soak in the suddenly evident intricacy of the world around her.

Across the road, a familiar figure caught Alex's eye when a lean, dark-haired man started towards them in jeans and a long-sleeved polo.

"Hey, Alex," Ben Daniels said.

He looked tired, with heavy circles smudged under his pale blue eyes, but happy. Alex briefly shook his hand, returning his greeting, and introduced Catie, who leaned forward to shake his hand with a practiced smile.

Ben sat down at the round table and ordered a coffee. "Alex, we have the records from the last time MI6 worked with Massoud. It involved petrol exploitation."

"Should I be surprised?"

"Fuel lines through Saudi Arabia were running mysteriously dry. They had been rerouted in small pipes, called leeches, that funneled the fuel to a nearby refinery."

"I heard about that," Catie said suddenly. "Dad was ranting about it."

Ben nodded pensively. "I'd bet he was."

"Does that have anything to do with why he was killed?" Alex asked.

"Don't know."

"Do you know about OPEC?"

"The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries." Ben gave him an odd look, as if Alex had said something decidedly unintelligent.

" _No_ , the theory on it."

"Alex thinks that the dead man was here to encourage Senator Janice Fields to remain on the Senate Committee for energy and advocate for a greater dependence on foreign oil," Catie blurted. "OPEC could jack up tariffs and make a fortune off American money." She impatiently pushed her hair behind her ears and stared down at the table, suddenly seeming shy.

Ben stared at her for a few awkward moments, apparently at a loss for words.

"Yeah," Alex said slowly, staring down at the glass cupped in his hands. "She explained it pretty well."

"Well." Ben cleared his throat. "That explains what Sebastian meant when he said that the senator had recently moved to a bigger house in a D.C. suburb in Maryland."

Another house - _that_ was why Alex had found the security to be so easy to bypass when he biked to her house, or what he thought was her house, a few weeks ago. The online directory probably hadn't been updated if the senator was still moving or had done so recently.

 _That would've been nice to know before I got shot at,_ Alex thought to himself, irritated that he either hadn't checked her address thoroughly enough or that the thought of her moving residence hadn't even occurred to him.

"She must have gotten a nice fee for her efforts," he said.

"Yeah," Ben replied, "And I don't think that's all she's getting. We tracked a few wire transfers into the Swiss account that your informant mentioned. Six figures, if not more."

"I suppose there's no chance of finding the source?"

"Nope. You know the banks."

Unfortunately, Alex did. The Swiss didn't particularly care who kept money within their borders as long as it entered and exited with hefty interest rates. In fact, anonymity was in the best interests of their banking systems, as Switzerland was loathe to extradite any criminals or evidence to the rest of the West. Rumors had been circulating in the intelligence community for decades about hordes of plundered Nazi art and antiques stored in Swiss vaults, unreachable due to their statutes on ownership and time-sensitive storage.

"That's a shame."

"We'll have to get her on video evidence or find another paper trail." Ben gave a heavy sigh, once again sounding much older than his twenty-six years. "Alex, can I have a word?"

Catie started to stand up but Alex beat her to it, placing his hand on her shoulder. "Stay here. We'll go."

"Be careful," she muttered, but her face was sincere.

Ben shouldered his way through nearly a block's worth of foot traffic, Alex following, until they stopped in front of a storefront advertising couture clothing with elegant mannequins in the window.

"How are you?" Ben asked.

Alex stepped out of the flow of traffic and leaned against the window, pulling the collar on his jacket up against the chilly air. "Fine. Is that suddenly confidential?"

"Any trouble with the other thing?"

"What 'other thing'?"

"The thing that happened last time you were here."

Alex's stomach contracted as if Ben had stabbed him with a serrated knife. Truthfully, he hadn't thought about the _incident_ ever since he'd arrived in America; after all, Washington D.C. was very different from Chicago, and Alex hadn't had much opportunity to dwell on anything outside of immediate concerns. "Haven't thought about it."

"Right." Ben's face was skeptical; he crossed his arms, waiting for Alex to elaborate.

Alex shrugged. "I really haven't. There's been a lot to do - the case, the break in, having Danielle come, helping Catie with her siblings."

"The break in?"

"Did they seriously not tell you? Troy broke into the Blakemore's house."

" _What_?"

"Stop shouting, someone will look over." Alex scuffed his shoe along a seam of mortar in the bricked footpath.

"Were you home?"

"Well, that's how I know it was him. He was apparently parked outside for a while. Catie saw him and freaked out. As soon as he got out of the car, I recognized him."

Ben suddenly looked even more tired than he already did. "I assume you did something stupidly valiant, like send her away and hide?"

"Pretty much."

"Alex, this isn't a game."

"I _know_ that!" Alex snapped, finally losing patience. "Do you think I _don't_? You think I _like_ being stuck at some stranger's house while everyone else runs around and solves crises that affect _me_ more than anything else?" He shook his head and stepped back, distancing himself from Ben. "God, this is why I hate you people."

With an exasperated eye roll, Ben huffed out a sigh. "First of all, I pretty much guessed that you hated it. Secondly, that's what I wanted to tell you in the first place: I'm leaving the Agency. This is my last stint with Jones."

Alex was getting ready to launch another tirade, but Ben's words quickly derailed his thoughts. "You're _what_?"

"London isn't the place to raise a kid, and Arthur deserves a father who's guaranteed to come home every evening." Ben spoke casually even though his shoulders were squared and his jaw set in a stubborn jut. He was serious.

"How's the kid?" Alex asked.

"He's fine. Gwen's sister is in town for a while to help out."

"Where would you go?"

"Gwen likes Somerset."

"Hell. Good luck."

A pained grimace crossed Ben's face. "Alex, you need to get out of MI6 as soon as you can."

"What more can I do? They've already burned me."

"Just be careful. If they can't have me, they'll get you." Ben shook his head in a spontaneous, involuntary movement. "Anyways. What's up with you and Catherine?"

"Catie," Alex subconsciously corrected him. "And, nothing. Why?"

"She seems to like you."

He laughed hollowly. "Nothing that's reciprocated. She's nice, but. . ." _She could never understand me, really. I could never reach her, or anyone. Besides, I've known her for, what, three weeks? I know about her, but not_ her _. . . 'cause that makes sense. Whatever._

"Well, she's a cute kid. You don't have to be so isolated - trust me, that never helps."

Alex resisted the urge to glare at his _married_ friend - what did Ben know about isolation, he'd met his wife almost as soon as he had returned from tour - and shrugged casually. "You said it yourself. She's a cute kid."

Before Ben could say anything else, an unintelligible shout rang out from the vicinity of the cafe. Seconds later, a tumultuous horde of people was fighting to get away from the patio, yells and shouts muffled by the scuffling of feet on brick. Several people sprinted out into the street, raising panicked faces back towards the cafe. Drivers slammed on their breaks, car horns screeching protests at the blatant violation of the unspoken yet understood order of city life.

In the middle of it all at a table close to the street, Catie Blakemore was slumped forward against the tabletop, her shoulders hunched up, arms dangling by her sides.

She wasn't moving.

* * *

Alex sprinted down the narrow footpath between the storefronts and the median filled with trees and lampposts that lined the street. Several people pushed him out of the way in their haste to get away from the cafe. Someone's elbow dug into his stomach, right where the bullet scar was healing, and Alex temporarily lost his breath as he fought the urge to double over.

Worst-case scenarios filtered through his head as he fought his way through the crowds to Catie's prone body. A shooting. A stabbing. Broken neck - no, her head wasn't tilted at all. No one stopped to help her. Why hadn't anyone stopped to help her?

As soon as he reached her Alex grabbed her wrist to find her pulse and felt it flicker dimly against his fingers like feeble wings. Her head lolled back when he took her by the shoulders, lifting her face away from the hard surface. He gently cupped her forehead with one of his hands, guiding her head onto his shoulder as he lifted her body into his arms.

Catie's eyelids were shut, not even fluttering, her face devoid of any muscular response to the stimuli around her. Somewhere, a bright light flashed, visible even in the broad sunlight.

The intuition that warned of danger crescendoed into a raging scream inside Alex's mind as he stood in the middle of an empty cafe and looked around for Ben. He couldn't silence the voices that told him that danger wasn't approaching, it was already here, and the evidence of that was lying unconscious in his arms.

* * *

"Let me see her," Mr. Blakemore growled to the unfortunate nurse who had the responsibility of manning the reception desk at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where the ambulance had laboriously plowed through lunch-rush traffic to deliver a comatose Catie Blakemore to the ICU. The trauma physician had found an ugly gash on the back of her head from where someone had bludgeoned her with a heavy object.

"So, _what_ happened?" Danielle asked Alex, who stood a few feet behind Mr. Blakemore with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

"Someone yelled 'bomb' in the cafe," Alex said, reciting what the news agencies who'd picked up the storey had claimed. "Everyone panicked. In the confusion, someone hit Catie."

He didn't tell her the rest of what he thought, that it was his fault, his fault, his fault for leaving her alone. She was an easy target, especially having been seen with him. Maybe that jogger _was_ watching Alex, waiting for the opportunity to strike. Maybe the unconscious one should have been him.

With a dull smile, Danielle wound her hand through one of his arms and gently tugged him towards one of the chairs. "It wasn't your fault, Alex. If anything, whoever did it would have waited and gotten both of you, maybe even killed someone."

"I should have known," he muttered. "I've had this - this _feeling_ , for weeks that something bad was coming. And now Catie's . . .hurt." _Or worse._

"She's not going to die." Danielle gazed at him, completely serious. Her honey-colored eyes searched his. "She'll live."

He sighed, a sigh that caught in his throat somewhere between recurring self-loathing and crippling fear. "I hope so."

"You really like her," she said softly after a pause.

"No. She's innocent, this isn't her problem, but she's probably just collateral damage to whoever did this."

"Right," Danielle murmured, but she didn't sound convinced.

Alex scoffed. _And that's why you don't like people, idiot. They become weapons. Then they get hurt._

* * *

Catie Blakemore had the strangest sense of waking up underwater as ribbons of twilight flickered across her vision like sunlight on water. Her thoughts were dull and viscous, slowly churning to keep pace with her pulse, which roared in her . . . well, she couldn't feel her ears. Or her hands.

Or anything at all.

First came the _hit_ , and then she was falling . . .

Had Alex come?

Was she dead? No, not dead . . . there was nothing here, no heaven or hell, no afterlife, unless her consciousness was drifting aimlessly through a yet-undiscovered fifth dimension.

No, she wasn't dead.

She realized that her eyes weren't open. The unusual coloring was all in her head, some image her brain conjured up, perhaps to make this state of living-yet-unliving more bearable.

Suddenly, thinking became painful, like a thousand tons of concrete were chained to each fragment of a thought that passed through her mind. Her head spun as if she needed to breathe but no air was coming.

Something pricked her - her mind, because she couldn't feel any other part of her body - that felt disturbingly like a viper's fang, a pinprick of pain in her consciousness.

Then, slowly, the twilight dissolved into blackness.

Catie stopped thinking.

There was a field of golden grass in front of her, sprawling towards the horizon with no end in sight. The blades rustled around her legs, though they made no sound, as Catie stood up to her waist in a field of gold.

Somehow, she knew that there was a forest behind her.

She turned around and saw that the forest was dying: trees withered, twisting into grotesque, gnarled shapes, and the branches were black. Not black like walnut shells, but the kind of black that looked like melting tar.

 _I must be dreaming_ , she thought with what felt like a gargantuan effort.

The grass closest to the forest was not gold but bronze, tarnished with patches of rust. It made a path towards a section of the treeline that had been carved out, reaching farther into the gloomy wood. In that patch of cleared-out ground was an ancient throne made of marble that had cracked in several places, though the arms and back were gilded with elegant swirls of gold. The throne was beautiful even in its decay, even enhanced: made beautiful by corruption.

Still ensconced in the eerie silence of the dream, Catie slowly picked her way through patches of dying grass. She felt a great fatigue, as if she was going to pass out at any moment, and tried to lean against the side of the broken throne. Instead of feeling solid marble, her hand was cold.

Very cold.

She sat down, pulling herself up.

Alex was coming. He would come back for her, wherever her mind was, he would reach her.

Not because he loved her - no, Catie wasn't foolish enough to imagine that - but because he had a sense of duty that would compel him to help her.

She just had to wait.

Something rustled, flickering in the grass in the corner of her eye, but she didn't pay much attention to it as she stared at the sunless horizon, waiting for someone to come and take her out of this dream.

Then the vine appeared, growing out of the grass, ugly and brown like the bark of a dead tree. It touched her wrist and kept growing, coiling around her arm until it was stuck fast against the arm of the throne.

Catie struggled and thrashed, but the vine kept tightening - she could feel it now, squeezing the bones in her arm - and suddenly it wasn't a vine but a snake, an ugly brown viper staring at her with two beady eyes.

As she watched, paralyzed, its mouth unhinged, revealing two long, curved fangs glistening with venom.

One fang pricked her arm.

The dream shattered, flying apart like a smashed mirror, and Catie found herself staring at the twilight once again.

Something rippled across her vision, the outline of a person, as if she were underwater and the surface was just a few inches away . . . she strained desperately, trying to get there, but nothing happened.

Then the voice came, impossibly soothing.

" _Tell me about Alex Rider."_

Catie thought for a moment.

Thinking was hard.

Thinking _hurt_.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She tried to speak but wasn't sure if she succeeded.

" _You can trust me. It's okay."_

"I don't believe you."

" _Why is Alex here?"_

"He's going to come for me."

" _Oh, silly girl. They all think you're in a coma. Terrible, the kinds of things that can happen to unconscious patients. . . well, no matter. Relax. We can talk until you fall asleep."_

The viper bit her again, a pinprick of silver in her consciousness, and again, Catie let her mind settle into the comforting delirium of sleep.

* * *

"Sometimes the patients can dream," said the doctor, who had introduced himself as Nathan von Spakovsky, a specialist in the care of comatose patients. "And sometimes they can hear, so the best thing that you guys can do is talk to her."

"Do you know when she could wake up?" Mr. Blakemore asked. They were waiting outside the room where Catie was, as a nurse was currently in there hooking up Catie's IV and other monitors.

"Well, whoever hit her was pretty strong. They got her good. Her body will naturally put her out for a day or two; after that, it's all up to her."

"She _will_ wake up, right?" asked Vince, anxiously polishing his glasses with the hem of his t-shirt. Beside him, his twin brother stared stoically at the door that concealed their older sister.

Dr. von Spakovsky gave him a sympathetic smile. "So far, all the signs are good. Unfortunately, there hasn't been much research done on comatose patients. All we can do is give them the best care available . . .which brings me to my next point: A physical therapist will come in twice a day to do exercises with her - move her legs, arms, et cetera - so she doesn't lose too much muscle tone during the course of her sleep. She has an IV for hydration and we'll see about feeding tubes in the coming days if she's still out."

"Thank you," Mr. Blakemore said.

Dr. von Spakovsky shook his hand. "If you need anything else, please let us know."

Alex startled as the door to Catie's room swung open and a nurse emerged clad in pink scrubs. Her dark hair was pulled back, but something about her face looked decidedly familiar even though Alex was certain that he had never seen her before. She was holding a large syringe, tip pointed up towards the ceiling.

"What's in there?" Alex asked, motioning towards the hypodermic needle.

"Cyclobenzaprine," the nurse replied with a smooth smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's a muscle relaxant. Don't want the asthma acting up."

Alex nodded and, as the nurse left, stepped into Catie's room. He felt like he was intruding on a family affair, but Agnes of all people had insisted that he come. Even now, she reached out with one small hand and squeezed his, staring wide-eyed at Catie.

When he looked at Catie, a chill ran down his spine.

She was the image of serenity with her face relaxed into a calm, blank expression and her spine molded against the curve of the mattress. Her auburn hair spread out on the pillow behind her head, safely out of the way of the breathing tube in her nose and the electrodes strapped to her heart. Another pulse monitor was clipped to her finger with a long cord running to a screen that displayed all the readings that the machines were taking from her body: heart rate, the strength of her heartbeat, blood pressure, and a dozen others that Alex couldn't decipher. She had been dressed in a hospital gown, pale blue, and someone had pulled the sheets up to her waist so they wouldn't interfere with the monitors.

If not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest, instigated by the ventilator, Catie would have looked very, very dead.

Mr. Blakemore stared at his eldest daughter with hardened eyes that glistened with something disturbingly like tears. Alex could tell from watching him that the FBI agent was going to throw himself into the case for Galen Troy and for the Arab to find whoever did this to his child. Of course, Alex was planning on doing the same thing.

Catie was innocent. She had no place in this.

She didn't belong in the hospital, unconscious on a bed in the middle of a lonely ward.

"I'm going to call your mother," Mr. Blakemore said, reaching out to clap Nic on the shoulder.

Nic and Vince nodded in tandem as he stepped out of the room with his phone already pressed against his ear. Vince played with his glasses again but Nic, having nothing to fidget with, tried to smooth down his coppery hair and stared dumbly at his older sister.

Alex felt Agnes squeeze his hand again, and she pointed towards Catie's left arm, which sat limply against the bed.

"Alex, Catie is bleeding."

"What?" his voice was raspy. Clearing his throat, he asked Agnes to show him what she meant.

Agnes tugged him over to the side of the bed and gently placed one of her small fingers near a spot on the inside of Catie's arm just above her elbow. Sure enough, there was a tiny speck of blood there. Alex knew he should recognize it - the type of bleeding looked so familiar - but he couldn't focus his thoughts enough to remember what caused such a wound.

"She probably got that during the panic," he said quietly.

"Didn't the doctor say to talk to her?" Nic asked loudly, too loudly, and promptly snapped his mouth shut. His face flushed.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. You guys should do that."

"Where are you going?" Agnes asked, concern creasing her brow in a manner very reminiscent of Catie.

"I need to call my sister."

* * *

In the fog of the days that followed, a crude schedule started falling into place: Alex would wake up early, get something to eat, and go into Blakemore's office, usually with Ben. There they would sit in front of computer screens and stare, frame by frame, at footage taken from security cameras in stores near the cafe in search of Catie's assailant. The crowds of panicked people who reacted to the false bomb alarm made focusing on Catie's table a daunting task, hence the necessity to go through each of the ten frames per second of footage.

After three days of this, Ben finally found something.

"Alex. Look at this."

Alex shoved his chair back and hurried over to look at Ben's screen. The image was grainy and heavily pixelated, but it showed the jogger from the table behind Alex halfway out of his chair.

Ben clicked the mouse.

The next frame showed the jogger brandishing some object -where he had gotten it from, Alex couldn't tell - and lunging towards Catie, who had turned to see what the commotion was about.

In the frame after that, the object connected with Catie's head.

The next showed her slumped over the table.

The jogger had melted into the crowd of people escaping the fake threat of a bomb, and by the end of the footage, no one was left in the cafe except for Catie.

"Who _is_ he?" Alex asked, slamming his fist against the desk.

Ben hit a few keys on the keyboard to zoom in on the last image of the jogger's face, but the enhanced size only made the image more grainy. "I'll ask someone here to try and get this clarified."

"Fine. I'm going to get Sebastian to take me to Christie Dome's flat. Maybe the man who hit Catie is the man who killed the Arab."

Ben absently nodded, clearly thinking about something else. "Alex, is there anything going on between you and Catie?"

"No." Without waiting for Ben to respond, Alex went over to Sebastian's desk and asked him for the car.

"I'll go with you," Sebastian said, unusually grim. "You're not licensed here."

Biting back an impatient retort, Alex waited on edge for Sebastian to get the keys so that they could leave.

* * *

The door to Christie's flat was ajar when Alex stepped off the lift on her floor. No sound came from within; in fact, the entire hall was silent.

"That doesn't bode well," Sebastian muttered, straightening the lapels of his jacket as he strode towards the door and nudged it open with his elbow. Creaking on rusty hinges, the door swung further inwards until, with a soft thunk, the bottom edge hit something.

Alex knew what he would see even as he pushed past Sebastian and stepped inside the flat, where he had only been once before. Sure enough, a shiny black stiletto was visible from behind the door, lying kicked out parallel to the ground but not attached to a foot.

"Alex, wait-" Sebastian began, but gave up when Alex ignored him and squeezed in through the gap between the door and the jamb.

There was a single shoe, which he'd already seen, but no sign of anything else . . . he stepped further into the silent flat, and that was where the body was.

Familiar dark hair was flung back across the white marble tiles, streaming from a pale face half-concealed by a single arm flung across the eyes. The woman wore a dark business suit, somewhere between grey and black. One of her shoes was missing, but Alex already knew that. She was lying on the floor, evidently having fallen, but she had not been killed on the ground.

A puddle of blood pooled under the back of her head and stained the front of her blouse, difficult to see in the dim lighting.

"They cut her throat," Sebastian said, having followed Alex into the flat.

Alex nodded stiffly.

Christie Dome was dead.

* * *

When the twilight dissipated again, Catie found herself sitting on the throne with the serpent lashed around her arm. _Why is this my only dream?_

This time, when the snake bit her, the dream didn't shatter like it had before.

" _Tell me about Alex Rider."_ The voice was back. " _Then you can wake up."_

"Why can't I wake up?" Catie tried to ask. She never could be sure if she was talking or not.

There was no response.

Then she understood. "Because you're going to kill me."

" _Relax. You're safe with me."_

A fuzzy shape writhed in front of her eyes, making her dream of the throne and the field waver for a moment. Catie strained, reaching for that image . . . but she couldn't get there.

She couldn't wake up.

Silently crying out in frustration, she fell back against the broken chair. She was trapped. Trapped in her coma. Trapped, trapped, trapped.

 _"Sorry it had to be done this way._ "

* * *

 **A/N:** So, just a note - the dream/altered reality scenes with Catie are heavily inspired by those of Rose Brier in _Waking Rose_ by Regina Doman (one of my favorite books, the ending makes me cry)

 _ **Review Replies**_

Format Freak - it's kind of funny, because I hated criticism up until I realized that having someone critique your english papers before hand is an excellent way to _not_ fail AP lang. Yes, Catie and her siblings have had a lot of disruptions, but no worries; Catie's part, so-to-speak, is pretty much over. Her main function as a character right now is to be in a natural (or perhaps it's not natural..) state of unconsciousness so Alex is forced to actually do spy things. And yes! That's how I would write an essay on _Sleeping Beauty_ \- I had to read the original Grimm tales for English this year, but sadly no essay was involved. Thank you!

19sweetgirl96 - Thank you so much! You're awesome :) I'm so glad you're liking this!


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Hi! I'm trying to finish some fanart that I was working on for this AU (And by 'trying to finish' I mean 'probably going to bribe my wonderful studio partner from art to do because he's so much better at drawing than I am'). Yeah, when that's done I'll put it on tumblr and/or instagram and mention that on here..

* * *

"They slit her throat," Sebastian said again once the police and Blakemore had arrived.

"It's common in honour killings, like the ones practiced in Arabic culture, or executions." Alex recited the information in a bland voice, preoccupied by the realization that their only chance for a lead was dead.

"Hey, over here." the medical examiner by Christie's body motioned them over and held up something that dangled from a pencil: it was a flash drive with a silver ring, that looked . . . wet.

"This was stuck in her throat," the examiner said. "She tried to swallow it."

Another person clad in white came over and gingerly took the flash drive in a clorox wipe, cleaned it off, and held it out. Alex took it, thanking the person, and pocketed it. What was on the flash drive that was so important?

"Pictures." Sebastian leaned forward and jabbed one index finger at the screen. "These look like they were from her phone.

Alex nodded as he clicked to enlarge one of the images that was stored on the drive. They were back at Blakemore's office for access to a computer. The pictures on the drive had all been taken at night, and the one he enlarged was lit by the red traffic light. Two men were pulling up to the Arabian Embassy in a dark sedan. The next image showed them dumping a body onto the sidewalk.

"The body _was_ dumped there," Alex muttered. "I knew it."

"You were right. And it looks like Christie saw."

"Go back to that guy," Alex said as Sebastian used the keyboard to navigate to another picture. Both men were dressed in black, but one tugged off his face mask as he got back into the car, revealing hair with a very distinctive blonde, like bleach.

"That's the guy from the cafe."

Sebastian glanced at him. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"So they sic a hit team on you too? What have you done recently?"

"No clue. Hey, where's the lady who yelled at you the other day? Elise?"

"She's taken a leave." Sebastian gave the computer the command to print out the pictures from Christie's phone. "This is not the case she should be working. Do you think it has anything to do with Troy?"

Alex shrugged, frowning. "I think he tried to blackmail Senator Fields into giving the order to nab Catie so that he could have a cut of the payoff she was getting to remain on the energy committee."

"And, hypothetically, how would he know what she was doing?"

"Well, someone knew enough to leak the details of the investigation to the press. Maybe the same person talked to him. That would explain how he knew that Blakemore was on the case. And which senator was involved."

Sebastian smoothed down his curly hair and pushed up his glasses, seeming to consider that. "That makes sense."

"Eh. Finding the killer is more important than chasing a leak." _Before someone else dies._

* * *

 _ **The Following Day**_

"Hey Catie," Danielle said lightly as she slid into the hospital room and shut the door behind her. It was her day to spend in the room with Catie- there was a hasty schedule for visiting that had been thrown together by some of Catie's friends- and she would rather be there than watching Alex silently agonize over whatever else had happened yesterday, because there wasn't much she could do if he wasn't telling her anything. "It's been a really weird day. Some guy on the tube started spazzing out about the apocalypse and the rapture. Apparently that's a normal thing for you people, because no one else seemed to notice."

She sat down on the edge of one of the hard plastic chairs and clasped her hands together in her lap. "The doctor said that we all need to talk to you because you might be able to hear us, so . . . man, I wish Clara was here - you know, Clara? My best friend. She's a brilliant conversationalist. I'm not, so I figure that if I mindlessly ramble you'll either get sick of hearing my voice and wake up to strangle me with your heart monitor cord (which would be great, we miss you), or if you _can_ hear me, well. It's probably lonely if you can't wake up, but that's okay. You need the rest." Danielle took a quick breath. "I could tell you stories about Alex, like how he tried to shoot two of his old unit members the first day we met, which was completely terrifying. It's funny how you told me that you thought your life was crazy - not funny like ha ha, but funny as in strange, because I thought you had this perfect life. I was jealous. You had siblings, a dad - a pretty normal life, right? I guess everything's uglier up close."

Danielle leaned back and crossed her legs, staring at the slow rise and fall of Catie's chest as the ventilator pumped air into her lungs. She had only known Catie for a few weeks, but that was enough time to understand the tremendous amount of stress and pressure that she had to endure, especially with everything that had happened to her family in the last year.

"And now you have to deal with Alex and me," Danielle muttered. "I'm sorry for that. No one told Alex he would be staying with a family. It's nothing personal, you know - he does like you, he just doesn't like getting close to people. It's hard for him. He feels so much older than us, like he can't relate to our age group. I don't know, Catie. It's weird. And I have no one else to talk to about it. The other guys in his unit are adults, they don't understand how frustrating it is. . . they say to give him time, like time will make him better. "

A sound at the door made her look over as Vince and Nic, Catie's twin younger brothers bustled through the door with stacks of books in their hands. They were dressed similarly, as usual, in khaki shorts and t-shirts. She noticed that the one with the glasses - Vince, right? - avoided actually looking at Catie, and empathised. Hospitals were one of her least favorite places to be, especially to visit someone. Everything seemed so rigid and depressing.

"Hey Danielle," Nic said, sitting in the chair next to her and dropping all his books except one onto the floor, retaining _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ clutched between his hands.

"This is one of her favorite books," Nic said, holding it out to Danielle. "You should read it to her."

"Why not you?" she asked, gently nudging the book back to him. "She's your sister."

He shrugged moodily and just kept holding it towards her.

Finally, Danielle took it and opened to the first page, clearing her throat. A few sentences in, she came to a particularly relevant line: " _If you've been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing is ever going to happen again._ Huh."

Vince peered at her through thick-rimmed glasses from where he sat cross legged on the floor in front of the window. "Do you think anything's gonna happen again for Catie?"

Danielle closed the book, keeping her finger wedged inside at her place. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think she'll wake up?" He seemed nervous, unsure.

Truthfully, Danielle had no idea. She didn't know anything about comas or head injuries, but that wasn't a proper response to give a little kid. "Sure," she lied.

"Why?" Nic asked, shifting around to look at her. His eyes looked a little watery, but he set his jaw, determined not to cry, just like his dad.

"Well, she got hit with something heavy, but it didn't fracture her head so it couldn't have been a really hard hit, right?"

He nodded slowly.

"And sometimes your brain has to shut down for a while. Like when you go to sleep, your body rests. If you get a really harsh injury, your body has to rest for a few days." _Yes,_ she thought. _That sounds fairly accurate._

"She'll wake up when her brain's fixed," Vince said. "That makes sense."

Nic frowned. "If she doesn't wake up then, something weird happened."

* * *

"Alex." Wolf stood over him, waiting for Alex to respond. His dark hair was cut close to his scalp, his eyes darkened with impatience. Alex hadn't seen him in months until now, even though he'd heard plenty about Wolf - Luke, as Danielle called him - from Ben.

Alex took his time shuffling the papers that he wasn't really looking at and set them aside before looking up. "What?"

"Tell me what happened with Catie."

"It's all on film."

"Refresh my memory."

Alex quickly retold how he and Ben had walked a few metres away to discuss something and how someone had yelled 'bomb', inciting a panic, and Catie had been bludgeoned in the ensuing chaos.

"Randall-"

"Who?"

" _Agent_ Blakemore," Wolf reiterated brusquely. With everything that had happened in recent weeks, Alex had forgotten that Blakemore had another name, that he was anything else except a federal effigy. "Had one of his team members run the image of the jogger through the FBI database, then send it onto the CIA, who couldn't find it, so _then_ they sent it to King Saul Boulevard, who finally got a hit on a Serbian mercenary notorious for facilitating arms to Hezbollah."

"Goddamn. Are they sure?"

"They aren't in the business of making mistakes about people connected to radical jihadists, so yes."

Ben kicked open the door to Blakemore's office - which was currently empty of all normal members, who were either in the lab, out following what would likely be an empty lead, or in the annex sorting through files from past cases- with too much force, and it ricocheted off the wall with a bang that made Alex's ears ache.

"Hey. King Saul says that the bloke's name is Lazar Palkovich. They haven't been able to get him because he's been hiding in Angola."

"No extradition," Wolf muttered.

"Don't they usually ignore most sovereign boundaries?" Alex asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ben shook his head. "Nah. Too much hassle, too little payoff, especially since Palkovich has turned up here."

"Uh, sorry to interrupt. . ." A brown-haired woman in a grey pantsuit stood in the door with a grim smile. Her name was Sarah - Alex had met her, weeks ago. Hadn't really talked much.

"The Israelis ask that this is done _completely_ unofficially and off the books," she said, wringing her hands in anxiety that was probably due to Wolf's presence.

"I'm not surprised," Wolf muttered. "They don't even have an official name for their agency."

"King Saul Boulevard," Ben said as he absently twisted his wedding band around on his finger. "Long and deliberately misleading."

"Like most of their operations."

"Usually to our advantage, though."

"Usually."

Alex slid down in his chair and crossed his legs, reaching for the bottle of water on his desk. If he was going to be stuck listening to them mutter on about mundane foreign policy that he had no knowledge of or interest in, he was going to go crazy. Maybe jump out the fourth-floor window behind Sebastian's desk that looked out onto the street below. "So, is there a point to anything you just said, or did you just want to introduce me to your knowledge of international trans-agency operations? An innocent girl has been knocked into a coma, you know."

"We're quite aware," Ben said evenly. "Anyways, Palkovich has recently illegally traveled to the States, and as far as we've able to find out, he's in D.C."

"How do we find him?"

Wolf strode back towards the door with heavy footsteps. "He was seen entering a bank a few days ago. Sebastian and Blakemore are going there now."

* * *

Sure enough, the man spotted at the bank was identified as Lazar Palkovich, and he was there to open an account. The manager of the bank identified himself as a Mr. Hansen, a short man with a portly physique and a ruddy face, and had a habit of tugging at one end of his mustache whenever he became agitated.

"Can we see his account details?" Sebastian asked, holding out his FBI badge for Mr. Hansen to authenticate.

Nodding nervously, the diminutive man disappeared back into his office.

Alex glanced around the bank's lobby. It was designed to impress, with rose-colored marble tiling the floors inlaid with patterns in green and white stone - probably hand done, and very expensive - and towering windows that made the need for natural lighting almost obsolete. The tellers were stationed behind large swaths of mahogany countertop whose front panels were carved with flowering vines. Everyone who walked moved silently, only the barest of sounds reflected from rubber sole to marble floor, as if this were the sanctuary of a church. It was a sacred bank, thought Alex, with an even more sacred reputation. The mere thought of a criminal opening an account here would be abhorrent to most of these people, so why had Palkovich been there?

Mr. Hansen returned with a bank statement and handed it to Sebastian. "Here. He opened an account. There was a transfer, and then he returned for a withdrawal. This is all I can give you."

"Thanks," Sebastian said as he took the paper and tucked it inside his jacket. "We'll be in touch."

Mr. Hansen gave a short nod before returning into his office and shutting the door firmly behind him.

"Thanks for the help," Sebastian muttered once he was gone, giving Alex a look. "Really appreciated it."

"Well, with the newspaper article about an MI6 working with the FBI, it's not really a good idea to go around advertising that I'm English, is it?" Alex pushed open the door with a little more force than necessary, forced to squint as he stepped out into the bright street.

"True."

After obtaining the bank statement, Sebastian undertook the relatively simple matter of swallowing his pride and asking the CIA to figure out where the transfer came from.

Sebastian had explained: "They have an algorithm to analyze routing numbers nationally and internationally. It's excellent. Pity we don't have access to it."

The CIA promptly sent over a college intern in whatever branch dealt with the algorithm to bear the news that the transfer had been routed through a bank in Switzerland but was originally from one in Washington, D.C.

"Didn't the Senator have a Swiss account?" Alex asked.

"Yeah. Lots of people do," Sebastian replied. "Too many to be significant."

"Well, who sent the transfer from the other bank here?"

Tiredly rubbing his forehead, Sebastian said, "Miles is taking that one."

Alex humphed. "I almost feel bad for the bank."

"So, from the two words Miles has said to you, you've surmised his personality? He seems to get along with your SAS man, Luke Giovanni."

Ah yes, Wolf. "They're the same person," Alex said.

"There's one in every group."

"Unfortunately."

Fifteen minutes later, Miles strode in through the door and held some papers out to Alex with the condescendingly benevolent air of a king giving a scrap of bread to a starving peasant. With his dark blonde hair slicked back with impeccable precision and his blue tie done up tight enough to asphyxiate himself, Miles bore a close resemblance to a robotic human effigy - well, those were Sarah's words, but Alex could see her point.

Alex flipped through the sheets of photo paper, much like the ones that had held the stalker pictures of Danielle, and saw that they were printouts of a security camera feed at a small, run down bank in the western part of D.C.

He recognized the man who, in one image, was filing for a transfer: Galen Troy.

* * *

 _ **Thirteen Hours Later**_

"Okay," Sebastian said, rubbing his hands together and stifling a yawn. "What do we know?"

 _That it's an ungodly hour of the morning and I've been in this office for twenty-four hours following endless paper trails with altogether too much coffee and no sleep_ , Alex silently ranted. His mood had started off bad and gotten progressively worse. "Senator Fields' assistant made frequent visits to an American petrol company. This assistant later witnesses the murder of a Saudi Arabian diplomatic staff member by Lazar Palkovich, a known Serbian thug, who later turns up in a cafe to knock Catie Blakemore on the head."

"The assistant dies," Sarah added from the ancient copier, where she was waiting for it to spit out some financial papers that she was supposed to be working on for the head of their department. "Around the same time that Catie's attacked."

"Someone was following us," Alex said, gathering his scattered thoughts enough to form a complete sentence. "And somehow, Troy turns up to pay Palkovich to get Catie."

"Which means he _has_ to know someone in this office." Blakemore slowly stood from his spot on the window ledge. His arms were folded across his chest as he surveyed the gathered people with a hard gaze, looking every single person in the eye.

Alex met his gaze evenly.

For a few moments, no one said anything.

Alex saw Ben and Wolf exchange meaningful glances, and he knew what they were thinking: Blakemore was Troy's ex partner from the CIA. . . would he not have the best chance of contacting Troy? And the knowledge to do so?

But his own _daughter_ , Catie . . . no, Alex didn't think that Blakemore would do that. The look of convergent shock and grief and anger on his face when he had arrived at the hospital, that was real. That couldn't have been faked.

Eventually, Sarah cleared her throat from where She was leaning against the copier

"I should tell you about Elise Barron," she said quietly. "Elise works here . . . she's on leave right now. Alex, you met her, but I don't think Ben or Luke got the chance. . ."

Alex nodded as he vaguely recalled meeting her at the scene of the Arab's death.

"Okay - and this was a few years ago - Elise had an affair with Troy. She was contracted to work at his office. Something with IT." Sarah twisted a strand of her dark ponytail around her finger as she hesitated. "I wasn't here when that happened."

"She wouldn't do this," Sebastian broke in. "Elise can be . . . well, she can be weird sometimes, but she isn't _evil._ "

 _Evil people don't usually think of themselves as the bad guys,_ Alex thought to himself as he stepped out into the hallway and leaned back against the wall with a heavy sigh. He didn't know Elise very well; they hadn't talked very much, as Alex did most of his work with Sebastian. There was no doubt that Sebastian and Sarah _believed_ that Elise was innocent, but personal convictions wouldn't go very far in the face of incriminating evidence - not that there was much besides the wire transfers and a security tape. The tape only showed the body dump, not the murder, so it couldn't prove that Palkovich and his partner _killed_ Massoud, only that at some point they had conspired to cover up the murder.

Alex _knew_ that this was all Troy's doing - the man had sworn, after all, to make his life a living hell - but there was no proof. Troy hadn't resurfaced since his escape except one at the Blakemore's house and once at the bank. He hadn't come to seek Alex or Danielle out. The more information that the case gathered, the more confusing it seemed. Every little thing was somehow connected to another piece and there were seemingly endless levels that had to be uncovered - first Christie Dome, and her part in the senator's life; then the Senator herself, and her significance to Massoud; then Massoud, and his importance to his country and any enemies he would have; then Troy, and whatever interest he had or how he knew to go to Palkovich.

Was it ever going to end?

* * *

Danielle was at the hospital again. Alex had offered to meet her there after he was done with whatever it was that he was doing. He'd sounded completely exhausted.

She worried about him.

Of course Alex would get involved; it was in his nature to try and help people, especially if he had the capability to do so. Usually his efforts didn't involve a homicidal maniac who had recently escaped from prison and was trying to kill him.

Danielle shifted in her seat and pulled her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. She pushed a strand of dark blonde hair out of her eyes, tucking it back into her braid, and remembered the Narnia book. She could always read that if there was nothing else to say.

After a few moments of silence, the doorknob jiggled. Danielle instinctively tensed up and grabbed her purse as the door swung open, but it admitted only Dr. von Spakovsky, who had treated Catie when she was first brought to the hospital.

"Hey," he said with a smile, briskly striding over to shake her hand. "Any changes?"

Danielle shook her head. "Nothing's different."

"Yes, that's what the physical therapist said. The coma is unusually deep; Catie isn't showing any signs of nervous responses to the exercises and stretches that the therapist does with her, but there's no reason why she shouldn't wake up in the next few days. The abrasion on her head is healing well."

"Her brothers are worried."

Dr. von Spakovsky gave her a sympathetic glance as he quickly pulled on a pair of latex gloves to check Catie's head wound. "It's definitely not easy when something like this happens."

"Definitely not."

Danielle sighed and sank back into her chair while he finished giving Catie a cursory examination. If Catie could wake up, why hadn't she?

* * *

Catie felt herself awaken -if the state she was in could be called awake - and found herself sitting again on the broken throne. The brown viper was already wrapped around her arm and its head moved gently, hypnotically down to her arm. She felt the familiar pinprick of pain somewhere in her consciousness and the snake's fang flashed silver as it retracted, uncoiling from her arm and slithering back into the dry, dead grass.

Catie moved her arm but found it held fast to the chair's arm with something that looked like a crystal bracelet.

She couldn't blink.

 _None of this is real,_ she repeated the mantra over and over until her mind echoed with the reassurance.

She needed to wake up but there was something stopping her, something anchoring her just beneath the surface of consciousness. Sometimes the vision rippled and sometimes she thought she could hear murmurs of voices that weren't from her head.

 _How are you?_

The voice was back, still speaking in quiet, soothing tones.

"Are you going to kill me?" Catie asked. The thought rose to her mind and somehow the voice understood even though she couldn't be sure if she was speaking. Maybe she was, and she just couldn't hear.

 _So paranoid. Relax. You're safe with me. We can talk again until you go back to sleep. Tell me about your brother._

"Which one?"

 _The only one you have._

"One? Did something happen? Are Vince and Nic okay?"

 _Alex Rider, girl!_ Another pinprick, this one slightly more pronounced. _We know who you are, Danielle._

"I'm- not Danielle-" Catie's thoughts were growing fuzzy; she could feel her mind sinking back into a heavy, dreamless slumber.

* * *

Danielle's hand rested on the strap of her purse as she waited outside Catie's hospital room. Alex was supposed to be there any moment to go get dinner with her, and the nurse had come in and promptly kicked Danielle out because visiting hours were ending.

The nurse opened the door with a sharp shove and snapped, "What's her name?" .

Danielle looked up from her book, tucking the volume inside her purse. "Catie."

"Did you sign in for visiting hours?"

"Yes."

"I'll have to check that," the nurse said irritably. "Who are you?"

Danielle smiled thinly and started to open the door. "Danielle Rider."

"Visiting hours are over. You can't go back in there."

Danielle glanced inside as the door closed and noticed a second IV hooked up to the stand. That hadn't been there before.

The nurse also had a biohazard bag with a long instrument inside that looked like a needle, but as Danielle tried to figure out what the contents of the bag were, the nurse strode over to a labeled bin and threw it away. She gave Danielle a steely look. "Do you need to be escorted to the exit?"

"No," Danielle said, trying to smile. "I'll leave."

As she hurried down the maze of grey-tiled floors, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about the nurse. Why a second IV? And a needle, if that was what the thing in the bio bag was?

" _The coma is unusually deep."_

When Danielle reached the front lobby, Alex was already there, slumped over in one of the chairs with his head in his hands. She hurried over to him and touched his shoulder, startling him.

"Hey," he said with a tired smile. "How's Catie?"

"No change. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." he hauled himself to his feet and made an attempt at smoothing out the wrinkles on his shirt. "Been a long day."

"Yeah. Any news?"

"We found a guy. I'll tell you later, let's go get food."

Danielle debated telling Alex her concerns about the nurse and the new IV, but decided not to bother him with that yet. They found a small diner tucked away on a side street that crossed over between two larger roads that were packed with vehicles and picked a booth that was tucked away in the far corner diagonal from the front entrance. The cushions on the benches were made of red vinyl that matched the white tiles and silver chairs, which made the place look like it was something from another decade. That was probably the point. The bright red and gleaming silver was giving Danielle a headache after spending the afternoon in Catie's low-lit hospital room.

"So, who's your guy?" Danielle asked once a waitress had taken their orders.

"A Serbian mercenary," Alex replied. "He's on video dumping the Arab's body and attacking Catie."

"Whoa. Anything about Troy yet?"

"He transferred some money to the Serb."

"So he paid the guy to whack Catie over the head? _Why_?"

Alex shrugged moodily, avoiding her gaze. He picked up his coffee mug but didn't drink, just held it.

"What's wrong?" Danielle murmured. "Did something else happen?"

He shook his head, and for the first time she noticed just how tired he looked: he had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was sticking up in every direction, and he was slumped forward, not even making an effort to sit up.

"Okay, after you eat - and you _are_ eating, Alex Rider - we're going back to the Blakemore's house and you are going to sleep."

"I have to get back to work-"

Danielle kicked his foot under the table. "No, you need sleep. You look like you've been hit by a train, and you're not going to be any help if you're too tired to think."

Alex gave her a grim smile and ran his hands through his hair. "Okay. It just bothers me, you know?"

"What does?"

"It's like this is all a game and we're just being played with. We have all the information we need to make at least _one_ arrest, but nothing's happened. Someone designed all this to make us chase them, and it's all a game."

* * *

 **A/N:** "King Saul Boulevard" is another shameless reference to the Gabriel Allon series. Which I *cough* definitely have _not_ been binge reading to procrastinate studying for AP exams.

 ** _Review Replies_**

Format Freak - Thank you! Ben Daniels. I think 'sharp sigh' would more accurately convey the action I was going for because huffing does have a different connotation that's usually associated with belligerent teenagers. Also, yes, cyclobenzaprine is a skeletal muscle relaxant that's usually taken for fractures, swelling, etc and it was incorrectly mentioned on purpose :) It's not a liquid medication either but some researchers at one of the Universities near me are working on constructing a liquid isomer of it to be used when victims from car wrecks or other sustained skeletal injuries are in a comatose state to prevent excessive swelling and bone damage. I don't think that's actually been successfully done yet, but one of the people who are working on it came and spoke to my bio class, which gave me the idea. And thank you! The lab-accident induced cuts have pretty much healed, and it was only my arm. My lab partner was the one holding the beaker with tongs when it exploded, so his hand is all messed up. And this is a really rambling reply, sorry!

Josh - Ahh yay! If you ever post some of your stories on here (or someplace else online) Please let me know! I'd love to read them. And that's so cool, I chose Somerset because one of my cousins is living there right now.

Ava Simbelmyne - Thanks so much! I'm glad you like them :)


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Hey! Quick notes on names:

Ben Daniels: Fox

Luke Giovanni: Wolf

Parts of this are heavily referenced from _Waking Rose_ by Regina Doman; I take no credit for coming up with the scenario with Lanoxin and Digibind.

THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed! You guys are the best :)

* * *

Danielle woke up on the couch the next morning with the TV turned to one of the national news networks. Pushing herself up, she swung her feet back to the carpet and settled back into the corner of the couch, tugging a blanket over to cover her legs. She vaguely remembered watching TV the previous night . . . and must have fallen asleep. Ugh. She had meant to take a shower, but evidently that hadn't happened.

Where was Alex?

He was supposed to be upstairs sleeping; the mantle clock indicated that it was five in the morning, and Danielle had only woken up because of the TV noise, but she was willing to bet that Alex was already awake. He wouldn't sleep for very long, not when he was _working_.

He never called his job - well, not really a job because there was no financial compensation - what it really was. As far as anyone else knew, Alex's _job_ was being a musician.

So spying was what, a hobby?

Danielle closed her eyes, wanting to go back to sleep, but she heard the telltale scraping of the back door swinging open. That door, which led out onto the deck, had been attached to its hinges at an angle, so the front edge always scraped against the floor. Catie had mentioned that a few weeks ago, something about how her dad had been meaning to fix it for a while but never had the time . . . which had come up because one of the twins had hit the door a little too enthusiastically and the resulting swing had gouged a deep scar into the stained wood flooring.

With that incident in mind, Danielle dragged herself off the couch and hurried to the door with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Who was coming in?

Then she remembered that Troy was free and/or hiding somewhere in D.C, and that he had been to the Blakemore's house at some point a few weeks ago, and her curiosity quickly reverted to a familiar gnawing anxiety.

She bit her lip.

To check or not to check?

One of the nice things about living with Ben and his wife was that she felt relatively safe with them; there was someone else who remembered to lock the door at night and was used to living in situations of unimaginable stress. By Ben's standards, Danielle knew she wasn't paranoid or neurotic; she was careful.

 _Because you're still scared,_ she thought fleetingly. Gwen, Ben's wife, always told her that she didn't have to be so scared anymore, but Danielle had come to accept that the persistent shadow of fear would never completely be gone from her life. She had lived with it for too long.

Here, in the Blakemore's house, there was a different kind of security: A family. That didn't extend to intruders, however, and when Danielle heard the first footsteps scuffing over the floorboards she stumbled backwards, almost tripping on the blanket in her haste to get to the stairs.

But it was just Alex.

He stood in the doorway with a tripod and camera in hand, dressed in plaid sweatpants and a white t-shirt with a hole in the collar. He saw Danielle, and his face softened.

"Sorry, did I scare you?"

" _Yes_ , I thought you were someone breaking in!" Danielle hissed, not wanting to wake Agnes or the twins.

"I'm sorry. I was going to wake you up last night, but you looked comfortable, so . . . anyways," Alex brandished the tripod, "Look what I found."

"What's that doing in the back yard?"

"Well, I kept seeing this weird orange light whenever I was in my room after dark. Actually, I first saw it on the second night I was here, and sure enough, someone's set this up."

Danielle hitched the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she held out her hand. "May I see?"

He handed the apparatus over and she removed the clunky camera from the tripod, turning it over in her hand. "This camera is old."

"The lense is new." Alex tapped the outer rim of the lens. "The plastic isn't as old. Is there a memory stick or something?"

She pressed a small button with her thumbnail and a flap on the side of the camera opened to reveal an empty SD card slot. "There's a card, but it's gone."

"Whoever set this up must be coming to collect the card before morning."

"Any ideas?"

"Maybe. It was well hidden, you couldn't notice the light unless you were looking really hard. I just happened to be staring out the window at three a.m. the first time I saw it."

Danielle gave the camera back to him, feeling an icy shiver crawl up her spine. "Someone's watching us?"

Alex shrugged but he didn't make eye contact with her. "I don't know."

"You think someone is."

"Do you want breakfast?"

"You're changing the subject."

"True, but it's relevant."

Danielle couldn't help but roll her eyes at him. "I can find something for everyone. Where's Mr. Blakemore?"

"Already gone." Alex propped the tripod against the back door and reattached the camera. "Remind me to take this back outside."

"You have leaves in your hair."

He ran his fingers through his hair, grimacing as he realized that she was right, and shrugged. "I need a shower anyways."

"Sometimes I still find myself amazed that you survived alone for four years. _Honestly._ "

"I didn't leave my flat."

"Yes, I can see why." Danielle walked back into the kitchen and flung open one of the cabinet doors to stare at the contents with the desperate hope that some fully-cooked meal would be sitting there waiting to be heated up. She enjoyed cooking when she was in the right mood, but as she felt impossibly exhausted, she would probably manage to burn herself. Or something more valuable, like the house. That would be difficult to explain to Mr. Blakemore. _I'm sorry, sir, it seems that I've burnt your house down on accident._

Fire. Ugh. Danielle still had nightmares about that night, that horrible night when it seemed like a crater to hell had opened up in the middle of London, pulling everything down in fire and smoke. Alex being _alive_ was probably a miracle. There was no way that he should have survived.

Shaking her head, she shut the cabinet and decided to try the fridge. Maybe there were leftovers.

Some time into reheating a dish of scalloped potatoes, Danielle realized that Alex had disappeared.

* * *

Alex left Danielle in the kitchen and returned to his room, which was in an almost comforting state of disarray. With the mess, finding anything important would be difficult for an intruder.

He missed the familiarity of knowing the area that he lived in, but he definitely didn't miss London. There, he was forced to wonder with panicked anticipation if each stabbing, mugging, or bank robbery would end up being the one that dragged him kicking and screaming back under the thumb of MI6, even though they were still all too happy to continue pulling the invisible strings in his life. They were the reason why he had even met Galen Troy.

They were the reason that he had spent five years of his life never, ever wanting to set foot on American soil again.

" _Alex, what happened?" Danielle watched him with heart-wrenching pity spilling out of her eyes._

" _I killed a man," Alex replied. The words sank down inside his lungs and settled to the bottom like concrete settling on the ocean floor. He couldn't breathe._

It had been an accident. How was Alex supposed to know that a car would come speeding around the corner?

He inhaled slowly, trying to feel his lungs expand and fill with air, then exhaled, but no amount of breathing could put air back in the dead man's lungs.

The dead man had been named Kyle, Kyle West. He'd had a wife and two young daughters, and he was dead because of Alex. Because Alex had been wandering through the streets of Chicago with nothing else on his mind besides a desperate yearning for death, deliverance, anything that would make the tormenting anguish _stop_.

He had left America before the adoption application for the family - his then-girlfriend and her parents - could be finalized, leased a flat, and started playing the violin again.

Now, with Catie . . . Alex knew how much her death would fracture the Blakemore family. Agnes would definitely never be the same again, not after being kidnapped and having her older sister die in the same year. She was only nine; it was a miracle she wasn't any more traumatized from the kidnapping.

Catie couldn't die. The very thought seemed alien to Alex; from what he had learned about Catie over the past few weeks, she was practically oozing with vitality. She had too much life within her to _die_ , right?

That nagging voice, that fundamental doubt, told him otherwise. She had been hurt under his watch; he had to take care of her. It was his duty.

Alex couldn't help but remember her in the museum, just a few hours before the bomb scare and the attack. She loved the paintings, especially the icons, and her face had practically been _glowing_ the entire time with childish excitement.

Was it really childish, or was he trivializing her?

Well, whichever it was, Alex didn't have time to think about Catie anymore. She was in the hospital, and he had to get her out as soon as he could. The longer she stayed, the more danger she would be in.

Blakemore's team was supposed to be scouring D.C. for Lazar Palkovich. Sebastian had sworn to call Alex if or when they found him, which left Alex the better part of the day to mull over other details related to the case.

He was tired of _thinking_ about the case; he wanted to _do_ something to hurry things along, but short of detonating a bomb outside the White House there was nothing he could do to get Troy's attention. Besides, bringing attention to himself would bring attention to Danielle, Ben, and Wolf. Ben and Wolf could obviously handle themselves, but Danielle? She needed a break.

Alex sat on the edge of the creaky mattress, wondering what he could possibly do to help pass the time.

The thought hit him, both obvious and the absolute last thing he wanted to do alone.

 _Then don't go alone,_ he thought to himself as he jumped up and left his room, hurrying down the hall to Catie's room.

Agnes opened the door with bleary eyes and tangled hair, wearing a t-shirt that was definitely Catie's because the hem went nearly to Agnes' knees.

"What?" she asked through a gigantic yawn.

Alex shoved his hands into his pockets. "Do you want to go visit Catie?"

* * *

Catie woke with the sensation of someone careening over the edge of a waterfall, surrounded by inaudible noise that roared in her ears - _ears!_ Her brain had remembered how to hear. If she was actually awake, she would have sobbed in relief for the release from her normal, silent prison of lonely endurance.

Someone was talking. His words bounced around her consciousness before she finally mustered the energy to try and make sense out of them.

". . . And you were right, by the way. The guy at the table behind us was watching. He's a mercenary from Serbia. Israel had to tell us that. He's done a good job of staying under the United States' radar."

Alex.

Catie desperately wanted to talk to him but she forced herself to settle back into the comfort of hearing his voice, not wanting to miss anything he said.

"So, yeah. I'm really sorry. I should've listened to you."

"It wasn't _all_ your fault, Alex," someone else said.

Catie felt a rush of - of _something_ , maybe warmth flood her thoughts. Agnes.

"I know," Alex replied. "It's easier to think that it is."

"Why?"

"I dunno."

Catie knew that she couldn't speak or communicate any other way, but she still tried.

"You need to wake up soon, Catie," Agnes said, making Catie realize that she had unsuccessfully attempted to break through the barrier between her mind and speech. "Thanksgiving is _next week_ , and Daddy promised that we would make pumpkin pie, your favorite."

"Yeah," Alex said with a low chuckle. "Wake up for pie."

"Or wake up for Alex. You gotta say goodbye before he goes back to London. We should go to London, Catie, Danielle was showing me pictures, it's really pretty. There's a park filled with flowers and fountains-"

"Hyde Park."

"-And a palace! They have a _queen_." Agnes rambled on for a few more moments in her typical excited fashion, and Catie had never loved her sister more than she did then, hearing her happy and excited for once.

Catie settled back into the warm embrace of companionship while her thoughts drifted, suddenly fatigued from following their conversation.

She didn't notice herself falling asleep again.

* * *

Alex was in the middle of telling Agnes - and Catie, if she was listening - about the time that he and Tom had met for football at one of the parks in London, a fateful meeting that had resulted in Tom accidentally kicking the football through a shop window across the street. The kick had been impressive, but the owner of the shop hadn't seemed to appreciate Tom's athleticism.

Suddenly, his phone rang and he shot to his feet to answer, already heading towards the door. "What's up?"

"We've got him!" Sebastian said loudly, making Agnes wince even as a jolt of adrenaline and anticipation shot through his blood. "Come on. I'll meet you at the office and we can go to the holding area."

"Okay. Coming." Alex shoved his phone back into his pocket and turned to Agnes. "Hey, Agnes, we've got to go. You're going to meet Danielle, and I have to get to work."

Agnes hauled herself to her feet with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting. "What about the rest of the story?"

"I'll have to tell you later."

"No, you have to tell Catie too."

"We'll come back tomorrow."

Agnes slowly nodded, seemingly appeased, and darted over to hug Catie's prone body as best as she could before scurrying over to Alex. She slipped her hand into his, surprising him, and stepped out the door.

* * *

Lazar Palkovich was sitting in a holding cell across a rectangular table from Miles and Wolf. He was an impressive man to maintain a bored, disinterested expression in the presence of those two.

His hair was definitely dyed, Alex thought as he gave the Serbian a critical gaze. The roots were dark, and Palkovich had heavy eyebrows that didn't match his bleached hair, which had probably been done for disguise. His features had a distinctively Balkan bent, squared jaw and an angular nose, and he was intent on remaining silent.

Alex moved away from the one-way window with an exasperated sigh. "Okay, what now?"

Sebastian calmly took a gulp of coffee from the Starbucks cup in his hands. "Well, Sarah and Vincent are searching his hotel room."

"You know, I've never met Vincent."

"He . . . selectively decides when to come into the office," Sebastian said delicately. "Of course, he has the privilege of doing that because - well, never mind. Agency politics are irrelevant."

Across the viewing room, Blakemore took out his phone and called someone.

A few seconds later, Miles picked up his phone, listened, and shut it off. He jerked his head at Wolf, who stood, and they left the room.

Blakemore strode over towards the door with the carefully controlled walk of a predator stalking his prey. "I'm going to talk to Mr. Palkovich."

He didn't bother sitting, choosing instead to stand behind one of the empty chairs with his hands on the back. "Why did you bludgeon my daughter into a coma in the middle of _goddamn_ Washington?"

Alex raised his eyebrows. He had never heard Blakemore curse before.

The Serbian showed a flicker of interest at that. "I was not aware that Alex Rider had a father," he said in fluent English that was barely inflected with an accent.

Alex ignored the questioning look from Sebastian; he was just as confused as Sebastian was. Father? No, his parents had been dead for eighteen years.

From the look on Blakemore's face, he had figured something out. "Galen set you up for this, you know."

Palkovich was silent again.

"He didn't tell you which girl was Danielle, did he?"

Alex swore quietly and stepped away from the window. He was beginning to have an idea of what was really going on, and if he was right . . . well, better to pray that he was wrong.

"You were hired to hurt Danielle Rider, correct? The girl in the house with Alex. You must have carefully surveilled them."

The tripod and camera.

Blakemore straightened his back, stepping away from the chair with his hands dangling loosely at his sides. "So you watched Alex and the other girl, and you - what, watched the house? No, then you would have known . . . ah, you must have tracked the GPS on Alex's phone. Simple hack. When he and the girl left, you followed. You were just doing your job, right?"

Palkovich's brooding expression darkened even further; Alex could tell that something Blakemore had said hit a nerve with the Serbian mercenary as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.

"But you didn't wait long enough. Alex's sister wasn't the girl you attacked, that was Catherine. My daughter. His sister is very much alive and well, and you're here in our custody taking the fall for Galen's plan." Blakemore shook his head. "You're not a martyr, Lazar. You're a businessman. You do the math."

After a few long moments, Palkovich shook his head and muttered something in a language Alex didn't recognize; he had no ear for the Slavic tongues. "Galen Troy is at a hotel across from your monument to Washington."

"What was the plan for Danielle?"

"She would be attacked and knocked unconscious. Doctor would say she's in a coma."

Alex clenched his hands into fists.

He understood.

He turned to Sebastian and grabbed him by the arm. "I need your car."

"What for?"

"The hospital. Catie's in danger - well, she's always been in danger, but-"

Sebastian's face hardened. "I'll drive."

* * *

MedStar Washington Hospital Center was almost empty when Alex arrived, except for Danielle, Agnes, and the twins. Alex felt a rush of relief when he saw his sister and was glad that Sebastian had made him call her.

She hurried over to him. "Alex, what's going on?"

He placed his hand on the small of her back to guide her away from Sebastian and the youngest Blakemore children, who were starting to wander towards them. "Did you see anything unusual the last time you were here with Catie?"

Danielle bit her lip, a sure sign that she did know something. "I thought I was being paranoid, but . . ." she shook her head, pushing a piece of her hair behind her ear. "There was another IV. It wasn't labeled. The nurse wouldn't let me in while she checked Catie's medicine and monitors, but she came out with something that looked like a needle. It was in a biohazard bag."

Dread settled into Alex's stomach like a rock. "We have to get to her."

He briskly strode over to Sebastian and told him to go talk to the receptionist so that Alex could get back to the patient rooms and wards. When Sebastian shot over to the front desk,

Alex grabbed Danielle by the arm.

"Stay here."

She glowered at him and he knew that further arguing would be pointless because she wouldn't listen to anything he said, so he quickly amended himself. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"I'll be fine." She barely acknowledged his question as she waved for the Blakemore kids to come over. The twins were both wearing black suits that made their hair look like it was the color of carrots, and they seemed very dissatisfied with their clothing. Vincent was tugging his tie off as he walked over to Danielle.

Noticing his questioning stare, Danielle elbowed Alex. "They were supposed to be at their piano recital."

"Can we see Catie?" Nic asked.

"Yeah," Alex replied as he started towards the doors. "Hurry."

Agnes broke into a jog to catch up to him. "Why hurry?"

"Visiting hours are almost over," Alex lied. He knew that he would have to think of some explanation as to why he was planning to get Catie out of her room, but that would have to wait. Leaving the kids in the lobby would open them up to whoever had orchestrated and was facilitating keeping Catie in an artificial coma. Agnes, especially, bore a close resemblance to Catie. She could become a target if the person drugging Catie thought that Agnes or her brothers might know anything.

Danielle's arms hung stiffly at her sides as she walked next to Alex, her shoulder brushing against his.

"How did you figure it out?"

"The guy confessed."

"Was it Wolf?"

"Actually, no. Blakemore cracked him."

"Did you just say something about our Dad?" Vince demanded as he whipped off his glasses in an attempt to rub a smudge off on his shirt. "You're acting weird."

Suddenly, someone started running towards them from farther back down the hallway.

Alex wrenched around and instinctively pushed Agnes behind him, inadvertently causing her to stumble and grab onto his arm for balance.

Sebastian sprinted towards them. His hair was wild, glasses crooked across his face. "Hurry," he wheezed. "The lady - she's crazy, I swear to _God_ \- she called security-"

"Did you show her your _badge_?" Alex hissed, resisting the urge to punch Sebastian. "Now they're looking for us-"

"Look, if there's a fu-"

"Language!" Danielle snapped. "There are _children_ -"

"Who shouldn't be in here!"

"Well, mister, I'd like to see _you_ have to replace someone's _older sister_ -"

" _Hey!"_ Alex hadn't raised his voice very much, only enough to make them stop arguing. Sebastian turned to him with a wild, panicked gaze that reflected how Alex himself felt. He had rushed into everything much too fast - they could have alerted someone at the hospital or called the police, but no, he _had_ to act immediately . . . it was arrogant, he realized, to think that he could do more on impulse than the FBI could arrange with the might of the law behind them.

Well, it was definitely too late to go back and change his reaction, so there had to be a plan B.

"Sebastian, take the kids to your car." Alex took a deep breath. He could feel the seconds ticking by as they stood fully exposed in the middle of the hallway, closer to being discovered with each wasted word.

"I'll pull it around to a side street so you can go out the back exit," Sebastian suggested, slightly mollified. "You and your sister have been here before - it's not unusual for you to be visiting."

Agnes' face scrunched up into a pout. "I thought we were going to see Catie."

"I need you to go with Sebastian right now," Alex replied, reaching down to squeeze her hand. "Hurry up."

"Yeah, Agnes," Nic said suddenly with the look of one who had just realized the true gravity of his situation. "Come on guys, let's go."

"He's suspicious," Danielle muttered to Alex as they hurried in the opposite direction from Sebastian and the kids.

Alex paused outside the door to Catie's room and pressed his ear against the heavy door. As far as he could hear, the inside of the room was dead quiet. "I don't blame him."

He quietly turned the knob and eased open the door just enough to squeeze inside. Danielle followed suit, shutting the door behind her while Alex hurried over to Catie's bedside. According to the monitor's screen, her heartbeat was steady.

Good.

They hadn't tried to kill her yet.

Alex lifted the second IV off the stand. The bag was unmarked, the contents clear and viscous. Definitely not any normal kind of medicine; usually, IV bags had to be marked.

"Take it out," Danielle said suddenly. "That's morphine."

"How do you know?"

She took the bag from his hand and squeezed, revealing the contents to have a consistency similar to syrup as they oozed into the parts of the bag where her hand wasn't gripping. "It's thick. IVs have to be thinner to be absorbed quickly. A lot of hospitals add thickener to the solution to slow absorption."

Alex glanced over at his sister, his sister who was deadly serious in what she said, his sister whose mother had sold her body for more morphine and opiates. If there was anyone who was able to identify morphine on sight, Danielle was that person.

He carefully removed the tape that held the tube in place and slid the needle out of Catie's arm. Her skin was warm to the touch.

"What now?" Danielle asked, nervously glancing towards the door. "Should I lock the door?"

"No. If anyone tries to come in, they'll realize we're here." Alex drummed his fingers against his thigh. "We'll wait five minutes."

"Morphine is a relaxant," Danielle said. "It wouldn't necessarily make her go to sleep."

"Maybe it's mixed with something else. The doctor mentioned that her coma was unusually deep."

Her eyes flickered over to him for a second. "You know, Ben is going to kill both of us. So's Wolf."

Alex humphed as he pivoted and started pacing back and forth in the narrow space between Catie's bed and the opposite wall. Ben was probably livid - for being twenty-six, he had the livid rage of an old man whenever he was seriously angered. Alex had managed to anger him a lot. Usually by doing reckless things like sneaking into hospitals to kidnap abused patients.

"I hope he gets to you first," Danielle muttered.

"You mollify him. And Wolf, which I didn't think was humanly possible." Alex shook his head. As he reached the opposite corner, he smoothly pivoted around and glanced back towards Catie's prone form.

Her grey eyes were staring back at him.

* * *

Luke Giovanni was standing barely a centimeter away from the one-way glass window that showed Lazar Palkovich leaning forward with his hands on the table, talking with a quiet intensity to Blakemore. Once Palkovich had realized that he had been set up to bear the sentences of Troy's crimes, he was more than happy to turn on his former associate. Luke guessed that Blakemore had probably predicted this - Palkovich was a mercenary, after all. He would naturally do what suited him.

The original plan was to kidnap Danielle Rider, Palkovich explained. He was supposed to hit her hard enough to knock her out so that she would be diagnosed as a comatose patient. The doctor had nothing to do with the plan; Troy had a person in the hospital staff who was going to take care of the rest.

 _That's why they were silent,_ Luke thought. Those weeks without movement from Troy . . . the whole time, he had been planning and inserting an operative into the MedStar hospital.

"When your daughter suggested to Alex that they go to your capital, I was activated." Palkovich's pale eyes met Blakemore's with unwavering intensity. "She had to be delivered to the MedStar treatment center, and the cafe was the perfect opportunity."

"What was to happen at the hospital?" Blakemore asked quietly.

Luke stepped away from the glass and shut off the intercom in the viewing room, needing some quiet to think. He might be in the States, but there were still resources available to him. If Troy had failed to get Danielle on the first try, he was bound to make another attempt sooner rather than later and Catie, having outlived her usefulness, would probably be killed.

Surely Alex had more sense than to try and intervene by himself. Surely, after the fiasco with the theatre and the fire, Alex would _think_ . . .

No, Alex Rider would not think. He would act. He was probably already at the bloody hospital.

Sebastian Yerkes was probably there too. He was just like Alex, if a little less impulsive. Sebastian Yerkes was naturally suited to work in intelligence. He was also young, as was Alex.

A plan fell into Luke's mind that would only need a few adjustments to work in this scenario. It was a familiar setup, one that his unit had run several times in Iraq.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and called Ben Daniels.

After some initial hesitation, Ben agreed on the stipulation that none of the Blakemore children would become involved in any way.

"As long as Troy doesn't get Catie anywhere else," Luke said curtly before severing the connection. He was joking. Hopefully.

* * *

" _What's going on?_ " Catie seemed to ask, even though her lips were barely moving. Her eyes looked cloudy, probably an effect of whatever cocktail of drugs that she had been given, and her skin was pale except for her flushed face.

Alex crouched at her bedside. "It's okay, Catie." he gently tapped the back of her hand. "Can you feel this?"

She shook her head with apparent effort then let out a tight-sounding sigh, as if her lungs were constricting, and broke into a wracking cough.

"That's fine. Dani, there's an adjoining toilet. Get a cup of water."

Catie fell back against her pillow, her face constricting with pain, but the hand that Alex was touching squeezed his fingers, letting him know that she wasn't in danger of an asthma attack.

Suddenly, footsteps shuffled outside the door.

Alex squeezed Catie's hand as tightly as he could. "Catie, I need you to pretend to be unconscious. Can you do that?"

Her eyes closed. She didn't seem to need to pretend very much.

Alex ducked under the bed as the doorknob turned, hoping that Danielle could stay hidden in the bathroom, as two distinct sets of footsteps entered the room.

"She had so much life in her," A woman said. Something about the timber of her voice gave Alex the distinct feeling that he knew her, but he didn't recognize her by voice alone.

A man grunted. "Does she know _anything_?"

Alex felt his blood turn to ice in his veins as he stared at the pair of men's loafers in front of his face. That voice, he knew.

That voice was Galen Troy.

"No," the woman admitted.

"Well then, she'll have to go."

Suddenly, woman gasped. "What did you do?" She sounded horrified, and Alex's hands clenched into fists as he struggled to keep still beneath the bed. What had he done? What had he done to Catie?

"A superdose of Lanoxin," Troy snapped. "Should take an hour or two." He stepped back from the bed and moved towards the door. "And in case your conscience weakens, I have the entire supply of Digibind right here in my pocket. Don't even think about giving her the antidote - oh, stop shaking, woman."

The woman gave a soft moan. "You can't just-"

"It had to be done." He didn't sound particularly regretful.

She stammered something unintelligible as the door swung shut with a resounding bang.

Before their footsteps had vanished, Alex was out from under the bed and at Catie's side. Something rustled in the bathroom before Danielle peered out, her face pinched with fear. "Alex - that was -"

"I know," he muttered.

Catie's eyes flew open. Her pupils were dilated - fear? More drugs? "It bit me."

"A needle," Danielle muttered.

"He said it was Lanoxin," Alex said as he removed the node for the heart monitor from Catie's finger. "Do you know what that is?"

Danielle solemnly shook her head."

"I don't think it went into a vein," Catie rasped.

That was probably why the superdose would take two hours to work. Whatever Lanoxin was intended to do, it would obviously kill Catie if she didn't get help.

They had two hours.

"Do you think you can walk?" he asked quietly.

Catie nodded and slowly began the struggle to push herself up onto her elbows even as Danielle rushed over to help her because there was no time for anything slow or awkward; if Troy or his accomplice returned, they were ruined, probably dead. Catie stood with her legs bent at the knees, weak and unsteady.

Alex helped maneuver her towards the door, which Danielle opened and peered out of in both directions before jerking her head as if to say _come on._ Catie's hand curled around the wall's railing in the hallway, put their for wheelchair bound patients, and she leaned against the wall for additional support.

Suddenly, one of the doors flew open with a bang as it ricocheted off the opposite wall and Sebastian sprinted in, still holding his car keys. "The car's outside," he gasped, winded, as he pushed past Alex and scooped Catie up into his arms. "Hurry."

Danielle grabbed Sebastian's arm. "They gave her something called Lanoxin!"

"Troy has the antidote," Alex added with a feeling of every-growing dread. "Digibind."

Sebastian locked eyes with him. "I'll take Catie to the car and you can-"

"I have it," A new voice said, and Danielle gasped as she whirled around, her hair flying over her shoulders.

It was the nurse.

Alex instinctively moved in front of Sebastian, who couldn't defend himself _and_ Catie, as he glowered at her. She was holding a hypodermic syringe in one hand with the needle pointed up towards the ceiling.

Behind him, Sebastian made a choked noise as he cleared his throat. " _Elise_?"

Time slowed to a crawl.

Ah, _now_ Alex recognized her, albeit faintly as he had only seen Elise a handful of times before she'd vanished from Blakemore's cohort of agents. Her blonde hair was dyed dark brown and cut short, which was why Alex had been fooled. He wasn't familiar with her, so she slipped by unnoticed . . . and was now holding a needle full of something that she claimed was the antidote.

"You have to get her out of here," Elise said quietly. "Galen just found out today that we got the wrong girl."

Alex carefully watched her face. "You knew."

Elise nodded. "The second I saw her. We had to keep up pretenses, in case she woke up or the doctor gave her something to make her lucid. Didn't want her saying anything."

"Does Blakemore know?" Sebastian asked.

"He asked me if I felt comfortable getting back in touch with Galen. He doesn't know that any of this," Elise aimlessly gestured towards Catie's prone form, cradled in Sebastian's arms, "Was me." She hefted the syringe. "Give her this."

"How do we know it's the antidote?" Alex asked. "And not another poison?"

Elise looked stricken as her gaze turned towards the tiled floor. "You don't. You _can't_. But you have to trust me."

"Do it, Alex," Danielle said suddenly.

Alex mechanically reached out for the syringe and turned towards Catie, whose eyes were closed. Taking one of her arms, he found a vein fairly easily due to the sudden pale translucence of her skin and inserted the tip of the needle, slowly pressing the plunger down.

Catie made a small noise and shifted her head, eyes still closed.

Alex felt his chest tighten as he broke off the needle from the rest of the syringe and held it out to Elise. "Get rid of this."

He kept the capsule and plunger, shoving them into his pocket, as Sebastian took a few steps back towards the exit door. "Will you be okay, Eli?"

Elise nodded with a faint smile. "I'll be fine."

Alex turned away from her and motioned to Sebastian, who tightened his hold on Catie as he strode briskly to the door.

A light rain was coming down outside, covering Alex's face in a film of water as Sebastian broke into a run and crossed the street towards his idling stationwagon. Danielle sat up front with him, the twins and Agnes crammed into the back seat, and Alex took Catie to the middle row. She was asleep again - or was she dying? - so he sat on the floor and left her lying across the seats. Her hair shone even though the sky was overcast and her face carried an unearthly stillness; through the haze of their escape, Alex dimly thought that she could have been one of those icons that she had stared at when they had gone to the museum. Bright hair, skin as white as snow . . . Catie looked inhuman.

"Is she dead?" Vince whispered, sounding horrified.

Danielle twisted around in her seat to seek out his gaze. "No, Vince, she's sleeping."

"Sleeping?" Agnes asked, her small face furrowed in a frown. "Or dying?"

Alex felt a chill run down his spine as he heard the voice of a little girl who somehow knew too much.

" _I don't like snakes," Agnes said matter-of-factly. "They hide in plain sight."_

"Hey, where are you going?" Alex asked Sebastian, who had just turned the car down a side road and seemed to be heading out of the city.

"Taking the kids and Danielle to their house," Sebastian replied in a clipped, strained voice. His hair was plastered to his forehead but whether with sweat or rain Alex couldn't tell. "Then we're going to a crash house."

"What's that?" Nic demanded, crossing his arms in the back row. "Did you just kidnap my sister?"

"No," Alex said. "She has to go to a different doctor."

"Why?" the twins asked in unison.

"That doctor was going to let her die."

Sobered, the younger Blakemore children fell silent as Sebastian muttered a stream of bereaved curses under his breath, just loud enough that Alex could hear and completely agree. He didn't even want to begin thinking about the crime they were committing. Even though Troy had clearly planned to kill Catie and tamper with her medical treatment, he had friends in high places - the Senator, for one - and could probably manage to evade the legal system, leaving Alex and Sebastian as the only prosecutable people. They could get charged for kidnapping, reckless endangerment, anything. MI6 wouldn't be any help for Alex; officially, he didn't exist. Not where they were concerned.

"I'm going to lose my badge," Sebastian muttered.

"I was thinking the exact same thing."

Danielle reluctantly got out with the Blakemores - except Catie, who had yet to stir - and ushered them onto the front porch. Agnes went searching for the spare key hidden under one of the potted plants out front, and while she did that Danielle marched back over to Sebastian's car and leaned in through the open window.

"Don't do anything stupid," she said, looking at Alex. "You can't help Catie if you're kidnapped or dead."

"Don't let the kids leave the house," Sebastian told her. "If you see anyone drive by, stop, take a look around - don't go out, don't answer the door. If someone tries to break in, call the police."

Danielle nodded with a grim smile. "No worries."

"Stay safe."

Her hands shook as she took them off the windowsill of his car and turned back towards the house. Alex wanted to get out and hug her, hold her as tight as he could, because that was his sister who used to be permanently afraid of most things that moved who now had to guard a house full of kids from a homicidal maniac. If he never saw her again - no, he couldn't think of that. Everything would be fine.

"Go," he muttered, and Sebastian started driving.

* * *

The crash house was actually a townhouse on the other side of D.C, the third in a row of seven identical units with brown shutters, a tiled roof, and green window boxes. Sebastian drove the car straight into the garage and closed the door so no one could see them carrying an unconscious girl inside. The neighbors would probably be concerned.

"This isn't a safe house," he said as he shut off the engine and opened the door. "This is for emergencies."

"Well, this definitely qualifies." Alex lifted Catie out of the car and waited for Sebastian to unlock the door and turn off the alarm before following. The garage opened to the kitchen, which extended to the left of the entryway with a dining room to the right. Straight through was the living room that was bisected with a staircase that led upstairs to what were probably bedrooms. Alex immediately made for the staircase, his arms starting to ache with the strain of the day's events.

"I'm going to find a bedroom."

"There should be some amount of medical supplies in the bathroom," Sebastian said as he reclaimed the house and locked both of the deadbolts on the door to the garage. "The windows are bulletproof. Guns and ammo in the first drawer of every dresser."

"You guys really thought this through."

Sebastian shrugged off his pullover and tossed it to the couch. "Like I said. Emergencies."

Nothing had changed with Catie's condition, but she was definitely sleeping: her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and sometimes her eyelids twitched as if she was going to wake up at any moment.

Hopefully she was sleeping off the effects of the Lanoxin, which must have been mixed with morphine to produce the odd state of muscle relaxation and deep unconsciousness that she had been in.

Alex had placed Catie on the bed in the first white-walled room to the left of the stairs. The dark brown sheets were pulled up to her waist, allowing her arms to fall away from her stomach as the muscles naturally fell into a more relaxed position.

As he sat in the desk chair and kept an eye on Catie for any signs of worsening, Alex noticed that the pale skin on her right arm - which was darker than earlier, a good sign - had a red mark around the circumference of her forearm, like something from a restraint.

Anger welled up inside his chest. Elise had _restrained_ her to the bed at some point, which meant that Catie's coma had probably never been real.

"Come on, Catie," Alex muttered. "You've gotta wake up."

* * *

 ** _Review Replies_**

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	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Hey everyone! Sorry for the long time between updates. (It's been a month I know but I swear I've barely had time to breathe) I had 3 weeks of AP Exams, regular finals, and graduation things. It was absolutely exhausting and my brain is still pretty dead, especially because our recording equipment messed up for AP French and we had to retake the ENTIRE second part, including the essays (which I gave up on in favor of translating Hamlet's _To Be or Not To Be_ soliloquy, which we memorized for lit, into French). Anyways, this is a filler chapter because otherwise the next part would seem abrupt and disconnected. It's also the shortest chapter so far.

Enjoy!

* * *

The moment that Catie woke, she was compelled by some unknown force to scramble out of bed and stumble into the adjacent bathroom, where she barely got to the sink before her stomach began violently purging itself of its contents. Her fingers curled around the edges of the counter, tight enough to make her knuckles throb and turn white, and she blinked through the haze of black spots in her eyes.

 _What happened?_

The thought came to her dimly as she wiped her mouth on her hand and flipped the tap on. Her skin was overly sensitive, almost burning at the contact of her hands on the sink and the flimsy hospital gown on her arms and back. Vague memories drifted back through her mind as she stared at herself in the mirror: Alex, her siblings . . . the hospital? Something with wire and glass.

She remembered the dreams, of course. As long as she lived, she would never forget the dreams of being chained to a throne in a field of dying grass. The helplessness she had felt came flooding back as she saw her trembling arms and the pallor of her skin reflected in the mirror. Abruptly, Catie pushed herself off the sink and tried to stand up straight even though her back tingled painfully as her gown shifted and dragged across her skin.

 _What day is it?_

If Alex was there, she couldn't have been gone for very long. A week? Two? Surely, no more than a month. . .

Catie took a deep breath and decided to take a shower. She returned to the bedroom, walking unsteadily as her legs still felt more like wood than flesh and bone, and found a dresser pushed up against the wall opposite the bed. A quick search of the drawers yielded a pair of dark sweatpants and a man's white t-shirt. There was also a box that, according to the label, contained 9 millimeter ammunition. Catie couldn't tell if that was actually what was in the box, but she didn't want to open it and find out.

As she stood under a stream of hot water in the shower, she closed her eyes and let the water flow over her face. She wasn't ready to start wondering where she was, but at least there was a shower and something resembling clothing.

 _Why did this happen to me?_

She wanted to cry but the impulse was lost beneath the water as she opened her eyes and reached for the bottle of shampoo.

* * *

After she finished showering, Catie sat crosslegged on the bed and started the long process of combing out her hair. There had been a comb in one of the sink drawers, along with several boxes of cheap hair dye, and which made her begin to wonder about the house she was in - well, she assumed it was a house. First the box that may or may not contain ammunition, then the hair dye . . . maybe this belonged to the government.

She paused and sat up straight when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Were they coming for her? Were they good or bad? She waited in dreadful anticipation as the person approached her room and knocked on the door.

Well, knocking was a good sign. They hadn't barged in.

"Yes?" Catie called, her voice raspy from lack of use.

The brass knob twisted and Alex pushed open the door, wearing an untucked dress shirt and pants of similar formality, as if he'd come from a job interview.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, and Catie's heart sank.

He didn't look happy at all - in fact, quite the opposite. His eyes were rimmed with red and his clothes were wrinkled and disheveled. The look on his face was grim, and he made an attempt to straighten his sagging shoulders to little avail.

"I'm okay."

His eyebrows flickered up for the slightest of instants before he gave her a grim smile and leaned against the doorway. "Do you want to know what happened?"

"I would like to, yes," Catie replied as she shifted on the bed to stretch her legs out in front of her.

"You were supposed to be Danielle. A hitman was hired to knock her out so the hospital would diagnose her as comatose, giving a planted nurse the opportunity to pump her full of narcotics and other drugs to keep her in either a state of semi consciousness or unconsciousness. She was to be interrogated about my whereabouts and reasons for being here." Alex recited his explanation in a droning monotone with his eyes locked on the floor, making Catie feel very small and even more unimportant. He spoke as if to an empty room.

She felt something withdraw inside her and spent the rest of her time listening to him in numb silence, nodding at the appropriate pauses in his words but doing nothing else. Maybe this was the real Alex Rider, this cold, unapproachable man who seemed much older than nineteen. Maybe everything he had done was just a farce, part of being a spy . . . she couldn't blame him, really. He was just doing his job.

He finished his clinical explanation that she'd only half listened to and asked if she needed anything by way of food or water. Catie declined his offer and, as soon as he left, rolled onto her side with her legs curled up to her chest.

Fragments of her dreams swam behind her eyelids when she blinked - there, the snake's fang flashing on the nightstand, and the watery blue world shimmered in the window. She felt a great pressure welling up inside her chest and aching for release as everything that had happened to her clattered around inside her mind but there was no escape, no one to tell, because who could possibly understand or listen without thinking her insane? Dreams didn't hurt people.

And that _voice_ , the impossibly soothing voice that made her want to tell everything she knew if only to receive a little more comfort, but terrified her at the same time. . .

Once again Catie remembered her helplessness and felt the yawning abyss open up before her of solitude with her memories and dreams, because there was no one to tell. She would carry this forever by herself.

She had been used as a substitute, a stand in, a horrible case of mistaken identity, and Alex didn't know. He didn't know that they _had_ interrogated her, over and over and over.

She had been used. Disposable.

She was alone.

* * *

Alex sat on the couch and stared at the TV without watching, oblivious to the current show. He was too busy thinking about the plan proposed to him by Sebastian and Mr. Blakemore that outlined an excellent way to keep Troy in their crosshairs for a little longer.

They would, naturally, go after Janice Fields, the Senator whom Troy was involved with. There was a ball coming up, a Congressional one that would be, as Sebastian had put it, 'just another occasion for policy and collusion facilitated by liquor and music'. Senator Fields already had a protection detail - she was entitled to one, being the minority leader in the Senate - but somehow, members of Blakemore's team would have to be inserted into it.

What better way to augment her current protection than to increase the need for it?

In partnership with Adrian Carter, head of the clandestine services at the CIA, there would be a relatively simple operation involving a botched assassination attempt on Senator Fields. The resulting chaos would provide the perfect impetus for competent security, especially from a branch that dealt with terrorism and other immediate threats. Miles and Sarah would go in with the current security team. Sebastian was excluded from the fieldwork of this operation because he had already been in public with Alex. Any possibility of his connection to Alex Rider automatically jeopardized his credibility and safety.

"Do you think Elise flipped?" Alex asked Sebastian, who was making a serving of microwave macaroni and cheese.

Sebastian aggressively slammed the door shut on the microwave and jabbed the timer much harder than necessary before he answered. "Maybe."

"She did give us the antidote."

"But she didn't come with us."

Alex drummed his fingers against the table. "Maybe she's in love with Troy."

Scoffing, Sebastian opened the microwave as the timer wailed and pulled out the styrofoam container. "That's always a possibility."

"You don't sound so sure."

"How's Catie?"

Alex didn't reply immediately. He knew that he had been harsh with her and had purposely distanced himself, which was what he'd intended, but he still felt guilty. She had never been through something like this before, and now she woke up in a strange house with no memory of the past five days. That _had_ to be disconcerting.

 _She's better off away from me,_ he reasoned. _Much better off._

"She's okay," he finally said.

Sebastian gave him a skeptical look as he leaned against the counter and ate his lunch. "Right."

"She _is_!"

"Physically, I'm sure she is."

Alex rolled his eyes, not deigning to further his defense.

"I'll go check on her." Sebastian pushed himself off the counter. "Think she's hungry?"

* * *

Danielle restlessly paced back and forth across the Blakemore's kitchen, careful to avoid knocking her hand on the long pot handle sticking out of the sink. There was already a bruise on her arm from where she'd run into it the previous day. She had been meaning to do the dishes as no one else seemed particularly inclined to do so.

She took a shaking breath and stopped dead in her tracks. Alex was gone. He was at a 'secure location' somewhere in D.C, and Catie was with him. Was she okay? Was _Alex_ okay? Danielle was tempted to call Tom Harris and tell him everything that had happened because he would have the perfect explanation or reassurance, as he always did when she was upset. Well, _almost_ always.

" _I don't know what to do," Danielle sniffed as she dragged her sleeve across her eyes to smear away the tears. "I'm scared."_

 _Tom's forehead crinkled as he frowned and reached across the table to awkwardly take her hand. "I don't know what you should do either."_

" _Tom!"_

" _What? I know_ nothing _about your world. All that music stuff, contracts, recitals, whatever - it's not my thing. I can't make that decision for you."  
_ Danielle briefly smiled at the memory. She couldn't even remember what decision she had been agonizing over . . . ah yes, the proffered contract from a prominent Belgian ensemble. The pay had been promising but the repertoire and schedule were both more intense than anything she had experienced in school. Plus, she would have had to move to Anderlecht, southwest of Belgium, for the duration of her contract. She definitely hadn't felt ready for any commitment of that sort; traveling to America to see her brother and guardian was about as adventurous as she was planning to get with her travels.

The dull thump of a car door closing sounded outside. Danielle hurried to the window over the sink and peered out to see Ben walking up to the front porch.

"Think of the guardian and the guardian shall appear," she muttered to herself as she hurried to the front door.

"What did you say?" One of the twins yelled from the living room.

She glanced over at them. "Nothing."

Nic and Vince were playing _Assassin's Creed_ , as they had informed her, and had been silent for most of the afternoon, which was a pleasant change from their usual pattern of running around the house and destroying everything in sight. It had occurred to Danielle that they were probably just as disturbed as she was about what was happening with Catie, but neither of the twins had said anything to that effect and she had no idea how to broach the topic, so she left it alone.

She opened the door just as Ben was raising his hand to knock. "Hey."

He gave a faint smile. "You doing okay?"

"Yeah," she said, stepping aside so he could enter. "How's Alex?"

"I don't know. He's with Sebastian Yerkes."

"Where?"

"Someplace safe."

"Ben!"

His eyes widened with exasperation as he flung his hands into the air. "I don't know, Danielle! I really don't know!"

She instinctively recoiled from his outburst but tried to cover her flinch by stepping towards the kitchen and making a vague gesture at the coffee pot. "I'm making coffee. Want any?"

"Sure." Danielle silently poured two cups of barely-warm coffee and added what was probably an inordinate amount of sugar to hers before placing one on the table and gesturing for Ben to sit down.

She wrapped her hands around her mug, feeling the warmth quickly turn painfully hot against her palms, and stared down at the steam rising from the surface of her coffee. She still didn't quite feel comfortable around Ben, not because he had ever been rude or treated her badly, but because he had seen _everything_ that had happened to her with the man who had harassed her, and he knew a lot of other things about her. Like the nightmares she had, because she woke up screaming almost every night, a blubbering mess of tears and shaking that made her feel like she was one sob away from having a heart attack. He was eight years older than her and knew more about her than most other people did. He had seen her when she couldn't control herself, and when she'd mentioned that once or twice, he had laughed and said that she was a lot like Alex.

Danielle jerked her head up when she heard Ben say her name insistently, as if he'd already asked her something once before. "Sorry. Yeah?"

With the barest trace of a smile, he repeated his question. "Has anyone else been here?"

"No, no one."

"Good."

"Any luck with Troy?" Danielle asked, her voice stumbling over the name.

After taking a long drink of coffee, Ben shook his head and set his mug down with more force than necessary. "No. Somehow, with the entire FBI and CIA at our disposal, we _still_ cannot find the bastard."

Danielle looked away from him for a second. Did he know about the hospital? She glanced back up to see his eyes narrowed, scrutinizing her face, and she knew she had just given herself away.

" _Danielle_ ," he said sternly. "What do you know?"

"When we were at the hospital-"

Ben's eyebrows shot up so high that she wouldn't have been surprised if they ended up on the ceiling. " _You_ were with Alex?"

" _Yes_ , so were the twins and Agnes."

"No one saw fit to mention that," Ben muttered with an aggravated sigh. "Why were you there?"

"They were going to kill Catie!" Danielle hissed, quietly so the twins wouldn't overhear. "Elise wasn't planning on stopping Troy-"

" _You saw Troy_?"

" _No_ , we heard him - Alex was hiding, so was I - anyways, Catie wasn't the intended target at all, I was. They thought Catie was me. Or that I was her. That's how Alex explained it, at least. You should ask him." Danielle fidgeted with the hair tie on her wrist, pulling it back and letting it snap against her skin, and deliberately didn't look at Ben. She didn't want to see the inevitable disappointment on his face.

 _He doesn't understand,_ whispered a traitorous part of her mind. _He wasn't there. There wasn't_ time _to do anything else._

"Danielle." When she didn't respond, he repeated her name again with a firm edge to his voice that made her reluctantly lift her head to look at him.

Surprisingly, there was no judgement in his face. His dark eyes watched her with something closer to sympathy than condemnation, and she felt her stomach twist.

" _What_?" she snapped.

"You have _got_ to calm down. You're wound tighter than a spring."  
"I don't _want_ to calm down," she protested, fully aware of how childish she sounded. "If - if I'm not worrying about something, that pretty much means -"

"That you're not thinking about it? Or caring about it?" Ben leaned forward, his forearms braced against the table's surface. "Yeah, I know. You know who else who knows? _Wolf._ He had an immense responsibility, we all did. And when we were in training, one of the first things we had to master was the ability to lock down all worries and anxieties, and to fix one problem as it came up. If you're worrying about your partner in the middle of a bombing, you're not at your best to survive or to be part of your team."

Danielle shook her head. "I'm not you, not a solider."

"That's right, you aren't old enough."

She rolled her eyes and drank some of her coffee to avoid having to reply immediately. After a few seconds, she cupped her chin in her hands with her elbows propped on the table. She wished that the floor would open up and swallow her so that she wouldn't have to continue this conversation with Ben, but when nothing of the sort occurred, she sighed.

"You're right. I'll try."

Ben stood and came over to lean against the counter behind her. "Good. So, have you been sleeping at all?"

"Oh, _don't_ ," Danielle complained, letting her head fall forward and thump against the table as she groaned. "I'm _fine_."

"Right."

She felt him jostle her shoulder - he was so annoying sometimes, honestly - and jerked away, making him laugh. She was smiling too despite herself as she sat up, stifling a yawn, and pushed her chair back to stand. "Thanks for coming by, Ben." _Thanks for caring enough about me to come by._

He slung his arm over her shoulder in a one-armed hug, then reached around her to steal her coffee. Danielle made a half-hearted attempt to grab her mug back, but he quickly moved out of reach.

"I hate you," she said.

"Sorry," he said after he'd drained the rest of her drink. "I've been awake for thirty-six hours."

Shaking her head, she smiled at him. "You should sleep, Ben."

"Tell your idiot brother that."

"I've tried."

Ben gave her a sympathetic glance as he set both their mugs in the sink with a clatter and started towards the door. She trailed after him, glancing once more at the twins, who were still occupied with their video game, before stepping out onto the porch.

"Ben."

He was on the stairs but turned around, his hands loosely dangling by his sides, one eyebrow raised in a silent _yes_?

Danielle swallowed. "Do you think Alex is okay?"

"He's going to be fine, Dani."

"Okay." Her voice was nearly silent. She coughed, clearing her throat. Ben reascended the stairs, his face creasing as he frowned, and pulled her into a hug.

She sniffed, biting her lip to stop herself from crying, as she buried her face in his shoulder and tried to take comfort in the fact that Alex had always been okay before, he would be okay now. Of course, okay was a relative term as it applied to her brother. At this point she took it to be synonymous with _not dead._

"Hey, Danielle. Do you want me to stay?" Ben asked.

" _No you don't!" Danielle blinked hard, feeling her own eyes well up. "Please. Please don't leave. We have a concert - and your case -" Her hands balled into fists that she pressed into her pockets._

 _Shaking his head, he nudged open the door._

" _Please don't leave me," she said, barely whispering._

 _He paused._

 _She thought she saw his shoulders shake._

" _Alex -"_

" _Goodbye, Danielle."_

Danielle pulled away and wiped her eyes, trying to push that memory back into the depths of her mind. That had been one of the worst moments of her life. She still had nightmares about it, about Alex leaving, and on those nights she would silently creep downstairs to reassure herself that yes, Alex was asleep on the couch. He hadn't left, not for real. Not again.

She blinked, forcing herself to focus on Ben. "What would you be doing otherwise?"

"Probably going through security feeds from establishments near the hospitals to see if any of their cameras picked up Troy or his accomplice, but the chances of that are slim. He's a professional."

Danielle bit her lip again as she stared at the boards beneath her feet, trying to decide just how selfish she was capable of being. She desperately wanted Ben to stay because, yes, she was scared. If anyone came to the house, she wouldn't be able to defend herself and three kids. Three _young_ kids, to be exact. Even so, Ben wasn't her personal bodyguard. He had other, much more important and pressing responsibilities than her.

"It's okay," she said at last, crossing her arms over her chest as a chill swept through the air. "We'll be fine. I'll lock all the doors." _And windows. And barricade them._

Ben frowned, scrutinizing her face until she looked away. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." _No._

"Okay, but if anything happens, _call me._ Or Luke."

Danielle's mouth went dry at the thought of what could happen that would warrant a call to Ben or Luke, but she tried to smile and repress that thought before it could get too far. "I will."

* * *

When a car door slammed in the driveway of the townhouse, Catie pushed herself up from her bed and peered out the window. Her vision was blurry and unfocused as she blinked several times in quick succession before standing and stretching. The car in the driveway was a blue Prius and the driver was a woman with dark hair cut in a bob around her angular face. The woman looked familiar; Catie was sure she'd seen her somewhere before, maybe at her Dad's office.

She rubbed her eyes once more as she left the room and sought out the nearby staircase, gripping the railing tightly as she lowered herself down the stairs with more dizziness than she would have liked. She still felt like her brain had been shoved into a food processor and regurgitated as a mess of disconnected neurons and impulses that couldn't think or do anything useful. Or maybe _she_ was the useless one.

Catie paused outside the kitchen door and listened to the conversation inside - a female voice, probably the woman's, and Alex. They spoke about her.

"What medications?" the woman asked.

"Digibind and Lidocaine," Alex replied. His voice was different from the cold, detached monotone he'd had earlier, and Catie felt something sickening twist in her gut. "Overdose of Lidocaine."

"Syringe or IV?"

"Syringe, I think."

 _Yes_ , Catie thought. She remembered the sting, the pinprick . . . the snake. An involuntary shudder wracked her spine as she remembered her dreams, the dreams that she would never forget. They had seemed real, real enough to touch.

She moved into the doorway before they caught her lurking around the corner and managed a tight smile as the woman's head turned towards her. "Hello."

The woman smiled warmly, but her smile didn't disguise the appraising once-over that she gave Catie. "You must be Catherine Blakemore."

Catie inclined her head, too tired to search for a verbal affirmative.

"I'm Maggie Reaves. I worked with your dad a few months ago. Usually I work for the Navy's civilian force."

"Oh." Catie swallowed. "Psychologist?"

"Something similar, yes."

With an answer like that, Catie gave up on getting anything specific - _Probably confidential_ , she thought bitterly - and instead gripped the edge of the countertop until her fingers ached. "You're here to make sure that I'm not crazy."

"Actually, no." Maggie shook her head. "Your Dad called me and asked if I would go and check up on you. Be sure the drug's out of your system, and all."

"Oh."

"I'm an RN, you can see the papers-" Catie shook her head, refusing the proffered sheaf of printed paper as the text spun and blurred before her eyes. Alex took them instead and quickly skimmed the information, giving a nod of affirmation when he was satisfied that, yes, everything was in order.

Maggie set a plastic box with formidable-looking latches on the table and unclasped them. "A blood test should suffice for the lab to analyze."

Catie couldn't stop herself from leaning away from the syringe, which was currently dismantled and separated into sterile packaging, as her stomach rolled with nausea. She didn't want anymore needles stuck in her body. "What else could you do?"

"Well, how do you feel?"

"Dizzy. I can't focus. When I woke up, everything burned, but now it's hard to feel anything."

Maggie nodded, her mouth set in a grim slash across her face. "Your parasympathetic nervous system is muffling the impulses to your adrenal cortex to effectively force your body into a resting state so the toxins can be digested and expelled."

"I thought everything was gone?"

"Well, it's definitely not present in fatal amounts anymore, but there's probably some residual Lidocaine in your bloodstream."

Catie heaved a heavy sigh and reluctantly sat down at the table with her arm held out. She closed her eyes as Maggie Reaves, whoever she was, readied the syringe.

When the sting came, she barely noticed.

* * *

"Are you _sure_ that doctor lady was legit?" Sebastian asked, yanking his glasses off and casting them onto the counter as they collected water droplets from his wet hair. He had been in the shower when Maggie Reaves came by, though he'd had advance notice from Blakemore that she would be arriving.

"The papers were in order," Alex said. "And everything she said made sense, as far as the internet can confirm."

Sebastian scoffed. "Any internet sites are notoriously unreliable, you know. Google a sore throat and they'll tell you that you've got pancreatic cancer."

"That's oddly specific," Catie said from sink, where she washed the coffee pot after having drained the remaining contents. "Are you okay?"

"Probably not."

She smiled faintly as she set up a new brew of coffee and sagged back against the counter in a movement that was probably supposed to seem casual.

Alex edged closer to her in case she was going to do something like pass out or fall over, ignoring the suspicious glance that she gave him. "Is the coffee helping at all?"

Nodding, she wound a strand of her hair around her finger. "Yeah. I can see better."

"Good. Tomorrow, you can go home."

"What will you do?"

"Go interview a Senator," Sebastian said with a look on his face that suggested such a task was the equivalent of trekking through the ninth circle of hell.

* * *

Danielle had been sitting in the living room for nearly three hours with the twins and, now, Agnes. When Agnes came downstairs, the twins decided to play a game that she could participate in, so they started a fiercely competitive tournament of _Mario Kart 8_. Danielle had played the game a few times with Tom and Alex, but she declined the offer from Vince to play because she was tired. To stay awake, she started flipping through an old issue of _The Economist_ that was lying on the couch, probably discarded by Mr. Blakemore.

Trying not to doze off, she got up and poured another cup of coffee. By the time she returned, the twins and Agnes were on a different circuit, and Agnes was vehemently protesting Nic's alleged cheating.

"He's not cheating, Agnes," Vince muttered distractedly, his eyes fixed on the screen as his thumbs manipulated the controller. "He's just better than you."

Agnes stuck her tongue out at him.

Danielle refound her place in a rather interesting article about the change in demand that a new software for recording and distributing music had caused in the market for releasing music and albums.

A few moments later, she heard a sound.

Her heart accelerated as she remained stock-still and listened intently. When it came again, she lunged off the couch and yanked the controllers away from Vince and Agnes. Nic jerked away before she could get to him and was about to protest when she clapped her hand over his mouth and pointed up to the ceiling. In unison, the three Blakemores looked up.

Softly, footsteps tracked across the upstairs ceiling.

Agnes' hand wrapped around Danielle's and squeezed hard enough to hurt, so Danielle squeezed back and leaned down as Nic watched her in confusion.

"I thought we were the only ones home."

"We are," Danielle replied quietly but evenly, fighting back the paralyzing urge to panic. "Now, don't disturb the game. Let the noise play. Go to the front door, and _get out._ "

* * *

 _ **Review Replies**_

 ** _MCButler -_** Thank you! I didn't even realize the parallel to Sherlock (that was by far the creepiest episode of Season 4 tbh), that part was directly inspired by a book I've read recently. And yeah . . . I don't know if it's going to work or not so I'll just let the characters do their thing for the meantime.

 _ **Ava Simbelmyne**_ \- Thanks! Haha, most of my writing on my exams was me making up (or really reaching for) words that sounded important (Is fantastically even a word lol)

 ** _Aneeta Potter -_ ** Thank you very much! I'm glad you've liked it so far :)


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** So, it hasn't quite been another month, but sorry for the delay. . . writer's block is awful.

Thank you so much to everyone who's kept reading this! I love you all. And please review, (!) let me know what you think, even if you think this has gotten awful and want to let me know

* * *

"Danielle!"

Hearing her name called, Danielle paused outside the front door and glanced over her shoulder. Mr. Blakemore was hurrying over to her, leaving his three youngest children standing in a tight knot on the sidewalk.

The police had been called from the Blakemore's neighbor's house, and Mr. Blakemore had rushed home after a friend at the police station called him to say that an alert had been sent from his address. Everyone else on his team was tied up, so he claimed, and that included Ben. Now, as Mr. Blakemore approached her, Danielle tried to loosen her shoulders and stand up straighter, not wanting to seem as tired or scared as she felt.

"You kept my children safe," he said. "Thank you."

Danielle forced a smile onto her face. "Do the police know who did it?"

"No." His tone told her that he had some ideas, but she didn't want to know.

"Did anything valuable get taken?" she asked, remembering the deadbolt on his door.

Mr. Blakemore shook his head. "I didn't see anything missing, but check your things."

"I will."  
"Okay. You alright?"

She avoided looking him in the face, reasonably confident that he would be able to tell she was lying. "Yeah! Everything's fine."

"Good." He didn't look convinced, just as she had predicted.

 _You're not safe anywhere._ The bitter thought rose to the front of her mind. _You never were._

* * *

The following morning Catie was dropped back off at her house, where she was enthusiastically welcomed by her siblings, and Danielle managed to slip out unnoticed into the backyard. She hadn't seen Alex or Sebastian and could only assume that they were off doing something with the case. What even _was_ their case? Alex's explanation - as of the last time he spoke of it, which was almost a week ago - was something about an assassinated Arab and the Senate Committee for Energy. Danielle wasn't sure she wanted to know more than that.

Sometimes, she admitted to herself, she did miss her old life. Having her best friend for a roommate and being a piano performance major had its own problems, but at least she had known what was wrong, even if she hadn't been able to fix it.

Danielle stepped off the back deck and crossed the backyard towards the patch of woods that extended back behind the other houses on the Blakemore's street. Had it really been last week that Alex found the camera and tripod? Or was that two weeks ago?

She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Her mind felt sluggish as if she had been sedated, but she knew better. She was just stressed.

She also hadn't slept very well since the fire back in London. After the incident with Catie, Danielle's nightmares had gotten worse, and Alex was completely unavailable to help her. Not that she needed help, she was fine.

Leaning against a tree, Danielle took out her phone and checked the reception. It was poor. She stuck her phone in the front pocket of her jeans with a sigh and flipped her hair over her right shoulder, feeling it catch on the tree bark.

"Why am I here?" she muttered.

The trees didn't answer, thankfully.

She tugged at the neck of her t-shirt as it rubbed uncomfortably against her throat. What was wrong with her? Yesterday, she had been fine. Calm, steady. She'd gotten herself together but now . . .

 _Probably jitters from the break in,_ she told herself, hoping it was true. _Or you're homesick._

Homesick, ha. She had nothing to miss in England, except two friends. Everything else - the school, the music - she could find almost anywhere. Objectively, she knew she was good enough at piano to have a decent shot at any conservatory in America and Germany, except perhaps the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Now, that was an idea. Finish school somewhere else.

Danielle frowned. She would have to think about that.

* * *

Senator Janice Fields had recently acquired a new home, far north enough that the estates eschewed the property tax of D.C. proper, but close enough to the city that the winding uphill drive had an impressive view of historic Washington. It was much larger than her previous home, though Alex kept that observation to himself as no one knew he had snuck out to what he'd thought was her house, and the wide front porch was guarded by towering hedges. The rest of the mansion was painted a pale shade of yellow, with a white tiled roof and gutters cut in elegant curves reminiscent of stonework. Perhaps they were. Outwardly, the mansion was pretty - beautiful, even - but Alex couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else there, something straining against the pretty exterior. Maybe that was because he already knew about the Senator and her activities with Troy and the dead Arab, but Alex had his doubts.

"Nice house," he muttered.

Sebastian glanced over, his glasses askance. "Yeah."

They got out of the car and approached the towering front doors, white panels inlaid with glass, and Alex was only dimly aware of the rustling in nearby bushes as some members of the hand-picked detail from the CIA (this was supposed to be a joint operation, after all) got into their appropriate positions. The plan was rather simple: Alex and Sebastian would talk to Senator Fields as part of the follow-up inquiries into the assassination, and someone else would commit a very convincing fake attempt on her life with a small charge that would cause more bang than damage. That would in turn provide the opportunity for the FBI to place a few _extra_ members on the Senator's security detail, thus giving them the ability to either find Troy or figure out how and why the Senator was in contact with him.

Simple.

The security camera on one of the porch columns whirred as it pivoted on its stand to follow Alex and Sebastian up the stairs, but Alex knew that it wasn't streaming any live feed to its monitor inside. Because the front of the estate was riddled with security cameras and a van of armed CIA agents would surely raise some alarms if it was caught on tape, the cameras had all been jammed. Any monitor would see only the last image the cameras had projected.

Sebastian reached for the heavy brass knocker, but thought better of it and jabbed the doorbell. Alex could hear it chime inside the house.

"She'd better be here," he muttered.

"We have an appointment," Sebastian replied. "She wouldn't risk looking guilty by avoiding it."

"You sure about that?"

"No."

Before Alex could say anything else, the doorknob twisted. Resisting the urge to adjust his tie, he straightened his shoulders and tried to smooth his face into a politely blank expression as the door was pulled open by a broad-shouldered man in a suit. He could have been a butler or an aide. Wordlessly, he beckoned them inside.

As Alex stepped onto marble tiling, his eye was caught by the framed portraits that hung displayed on the walls inside the foyer. They looked to be paintings of historical figures - there was Washington crossing the Delaware, some other guy with a wig, and a scene Alex didn't recognize: a group of men working to build some kind of retaining wall.

Sebastian's mouth was pressed into a flat line as he was clearly unimpressed with the Senator's taste in art.

The doorman cleared his throat from the opening to a long hallway. Alex tore his gaze away from the paintings and walked after him, hearing Sebastian's footsteps follow. In the hallway, the flooring changed from marble to dark, gleaming wood. The walls were white and smelled of fresh paint, but bare. No paintings, photographs, or other decorations were hung. To be fair, the Senator had only recently moved in, but the lack of personal touches gave off a distinctly impersonal chill, as if the mansion belonged to no one.

The hallway opened into a massive living room that had a spiraling staircase in the middle leading up to the second floor. Shiny railings hung suspended from the ceiling and followed the staircase up until the landing. Alex thought they looked more like a safety hazard than a design feature.

Up the stairs was a hallway, half of which had another railing with glass siding that looked down onto the living room. The other half led to the open door of an office.

The man in the suit disappeared into the office after gesturing for Alex and Sebastian to remain in the hallway. When he reappeared, he only nodded at Sebastian to enter.

After a quick glance at Alex, Sebastian went ahead alone.

* * *

Sebastian had never considered himself to be _un homme politique_ , as his old international relations professor would say, but to be fair, he had never considered himself to be FBI material either. Now, four years out of college, he was standing in a creepy house in front of the Senate minority leader, Janice Fields. He had done his research on her: staunch Democrat, divorced, three grown children. Her youngest daughter was Sebastian's age, which meant that the Senator was quite literally old enough to be his mother.

Now _that_ was a creepy thought.

Sebastian knew the big secret about D.C. politics was that the more time any official spent in their elected office, the less they cared about party affiliation and the more they cared about keeping their position, their power, their empire, their legacy. Democracy, like any other system created by mankind, was fallible.

 _Still better than the alternative,_ he thought to himself as he entered the office with the suit-butler-bodyguard guy at his back. Why just Sebastian, why not Alex? Was this because Alex was foreign, or because the Senator suspected something?

Sebastian frowned. _Or she's been tipped off_. _By Troy._

The office was sparsely furnished large, oakwood desk, chair, bookcase. No art or photographs on the walls, much like the barren hallway downstairs. A cold draft blew from the air vent above the doorway and made the room feel cold and clinical, like a doctor's office - no, like a morgue.

Behind the wooden desk, wide and long, sat Senator Fields. She looked nothing like the pictures Sebastian had found of her. In those images, she had dark hair pulled back into a severe bun, a face with just enough wrinkles to reveal failed cosmetic surgery, and piercing eyes. Now, Sebastian only thought that she looked _old_.

The Senator's hair was streaked with grey where it met her scalp. Her face carried an unearthly pallor like a reanimated corpse, an effect amplified by the dark lipstick she wore that made her mouth a crimson slash across her face. She wore a red pantsuit with a white blouse. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black, and Sebastian suddenly felt the wear that thirty-five years in Congress brought to a person.

"You're Sebastian Yerkes?" her voice was sharp, accented. New York.

He inclined his head deferentially. "Yes, ma'am. I'm here for a follow up to the death of an employee of the Saudi Arabian embassy."

"And how did your. . . little computer software," she made a dismissive gesture that was intended to irk the recipient. "Manage to connect my name to the dead man's?"

"It has come to our knowledge that you met with him several times," Sebastian replied in as formal a tone as he could muster. Something about this woman made him feel as if he was a diver in one of those cages to observe sharks. Except there were no bars, and he was about to get eaten alive.

He had always hated people like Senator Fields, who used their status and wealth to bully the law-abiding citizens into submission, even when they were just trying to do their jobs. That was part of why he'd ended up going into the FBI, despite the disapproval of his family, because he saw his chance to hold up the law for what it was instead of what people wished it could be.

Her penciled eyebrows flickered up for a second. "Who gave you that information?"

Sebastian gritted his teeth. "That isn't relevant. We believe you may be the target of a concerted effort to shut down the Senate Committee on Energy after the work you were doing to bolster American business with OPEC. That could be why the Saudi employee was killed."

"Probably those damned Republicans. They'll do anything to keep their pet coal miners happy - oh, apologies," she said, giving him a knowing glance. "Are you one of them?"

"Nonpartisan. Now, I apologize if you have a problem with the proceedings, but they aren't optional." Resisting the urge to look at his watch, Sebastian frantically tried to come up with something else to say. He was only supposed to be stalling for time until the CIA team found an opening to place the fake charge. According to the previous rehearsals, the blast would come at least ten minutes after Sebastian and Alex stepped foot inside the front door, but Sebastian had no idea how much time had passed since then. Five minutes? Eight? Ten?

And _why_ was Alex still outside?

Suddenly, Sebastian noticed a blinking light coming from a shiny black dome on her desk. He'd assumed it was a paper weight. As soon as he noticed the red dot, Senator Fields shuffled some papers around on her desk until the light was hidden from view.

That couldn't be a coincidence. Sebastian didn't believe in those anymore. So, the blinking red light was one of two things: it was either some kind of notification system, or it was a silent alarm.

This was a trap.

* * *

When Catie woke up from her second nap of the day, it was only ten. In the morning. Apparently, she couldn't sleep for more than forty-five minutes at a time, not unless she was completely exhausted. Was that a side effect from the medicine, or was she too wound up to relax? Catie suspected the latter was the reason, but she pushed the thought out of her head as she rolled off the couch and went to the kitchen in search of breakfast.

Soft music filtered through the quiet house as Danielle practiced on the ancient, rickety piano in the sunroom. Catie had tried to learn, once, but that endeavor had ended with tears and no small amount of frustration. She hadn't been able to make her hands do two different things at once, so she settled for listening to Danielle practice instead. The piano had belonged to her paternal grandmother, who was quite disappointed when Catie failed to demonstrate any musical aptitude.

Catie scoffed at herself, standing on her tiptoes to pull down a box of Cheerios from one of the cabinets. _You don't need talents like that._

Okay, maybe she was jealous. Slightly. But it was _hard_ , suddenly being surrounded with talented, successful people, when all she had to show for her life was a driver's license and being the target of choice for street attacks. No where near as impressive as being a world-renowned musician.

Well, at least she could remember what chemical had been used to try and kill her: Lanoxin, not lidocaine. Alex had gotten it wrong, back at the townhouse. When Catie had researched the difference between the two, she found that lanoxin was usually used for irregular heartbeats, and an overdose could have stopped her heart. Lidocaine was a painkiller, a number. It could have stopped her heart too, made every muscle in her body numb and paralyzed, but it wasn't what the Voice had given her. Catie only knew her interrogator by her voice - she had never seen the woman's face.

She sat at the kitchen table with her cereal and tried to eat as fast as she could. There was no sign of Agnes or the Twins, so someone must have drove them to co-op. Catie reminded herself to thank whoever had done that later because she knew she couldn't drive in her current state.

Catie tossed her now-empty bowl into the sink with a clatter and followed the sound of soft, quiet piano music to find Danielle in the sunroom. She sat down in one of the cheap plastic recliners to listen, allowing her mind to drift as she listened to the music unfurl into the quiet room.

"Catie?"

"Hm?" Catie blinked, realizing she'd allowed herself to zone out and that Danielle had stopped practicing. The sudden silence hung in the room. "Oh, hey. Sorry. I can leave if you'd prefer-"

"No, no, it's fine," Danielle waved her off, pulling her hair over her left shoulder. "Do you need anything?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine."

"Okay. Sorry if I'm annoying you. I'm under orders from Alex to check on you every hour."

"Wait, what?"

"He _is_ human, you know," Danielle continued as if Catie hadn't spoken. "Sometimes he just pretends otherwise."

"Right. . ." Before Catie could say anything else, she heard the front door get flung open and ricochet off the wall as the twins stampeded inside.

" _Catie!_ Agnes is at the Karg's house!" Nic hollered as he walked through the kitchen and peered inside the sunroom. "Oh. Hey."

Danielle waved at him as she pivoted back to stack her sheet music into a pile and slid it under the bench. While she did that, Catie waited for Nic to finish what he was saying.

"What are we doing for Thanksgiving?" he asked. "Catie, I really don't want to go to Mom's-"

"We're not," Catie said, reassuring him. "We're having dinner here."

Looking relieved, he nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Danielle turned to Catie. "When _is_ Thanksgiving?"

"Tomorrow. Which reminds me, I need to get groceries." Catie sighed and hauled herself up out of her chair. So much for relaxing.

The bench legs screeched as Danielle pushed it back under the instrument, nudging her sheet music along with it. "I'll help, if you want."

"Yeah, thanks. We can take the twins too."

* * *

"Thank you for your time, Senator," Sebastian said, having finished the interview. Nothing catastrophic had happened - no bomb, no machine guns, no Galen Troy - but every bit of his intuition was telling him that something was not right. That blinking red light _had_ to be an alert or an alarm.

She didn't reply.

Sebastian hurried out of her office. Alex leaned against one of the railings, waiting for him, and was about to say something when Sebastian marched by him and ran down the staircase.

"How did it go?" Alex asked.  
" _Where_ is the blast?" Sebastian hissed back in reply as he hurried down the familiar barren hallway.

"I don't know! Look, watch out - the Suit disappeared after you went inside, and he hasn't returned-"

Sebastian halted abruptly in the middle of the doorway to the grand foyer. "I found him."

"What are you talking about?" Alex shouldered past him and stepped into the tall room. " _Oh._ "

The man who had answered the door was back in the foyer, lying on the floor in a gruesome heap. Dark blood stained the floor near where his bald head was.

Sebastian knew the man was dead, but he still walked over to the body and crouched down, looking for the source of the bleeding. The man had been shot in the back of the head. From the size of the entry wound, the shot had been fired from no more than four feet away, which meant. . .

"Did you hear the door open or close?" Sebastian asked.

Alex shook his head, seeming to pull himself out of a daze. "I didn't." He walked over to the front door and peered out. "There's no sign of the CIA."

"Alex," a thought occurred to Sebastian. "Is your mic on?"

Both of them had been outfitted with small, wireless transmitters before they left the van. The microphones were supposed to transmit to the man leading point on the strike team.

Alex yanked open the first button of his shirt and took the small black device out from inside the collar. "No."

 _That's what the red light was,_ Sebastian realized. "They're jamming our signals."

"Let's go," Alex said as he pulled open the door. "She's been tipped off. If we stay, she'll know we know."

"She's probably figured that out."

"Sebastian."

"Yes?"

They were walking faster now, towards Sebastian's car, their footsteps echoing off the freshly paved driveway.

"The shooter. Whoever killed the butler-aid-whatever." Alex's voice became strained as he bent down, checking the undercarriage of the sedan for something.

"They're inside the house."

"I know. So why aren't we dead?"

"I don't know," Alex muttered as he got onto his stomach and peered farther under the car, brow furrowed with concern.

"Will you stop doing that and _get in the car_?" Sebastian sat down in the driver's seat and jammed the key into the ignition. The CIA team would see them leaving and realize that the mission was a bust.

Alex glared at him as he got into the car and slammed the door behind him.

Sebastian snorted. "What are you checking for, explosives?"

Alex didn't reply.

When he pulled the car out of the driveway, Sebastian glanced over at Alex as he realized his mistake.

Alex's face was ashen. His eyes were dark, hollow like he had walked through a nuclear wasteland.

"Sorry," Sebastian cleared his throat, pushing his glasses up onto his face. "I wasn't thinking-"

"It's fine."

Something in Alex's voice told him to drop the subject.

* * *

By the time Alex got back to the Blakemore's house, he had shaken off the eerie feeling from seeing another corpse, and even managed to start up a conversation with Sebastian, who was trailing him to the front door.

He could hear music playing from the speakers from outside the house, and before he stepped onto the porch, the door flew open and Vince came running out.

"Alex!" he yanked his glasses off his face. "You have to stop them!"

" _What_?" Alex was immediately on edge. "What's going on?"

"The music! It's awful!"

Sebastian laughed as Alex let out a carefully controlled sigh and tried not to start yelling at Vince about the difference between emergencies and inconveniences. _He's a kid,_ Alex reminded himself. _He's thirteen._

"When you're gone," Vince said, continuing as if Alex hadn't been about to storm into the house, "The balance between _normal_ and _other_ is ruined."

"I like this kid," Sebastian muttered.

Alex shot him a glare. "Don't encourage him. Come on, Vince, let's go inside."

Vince dutifully plodded back towards the front porch, his bare footsteps clomping against the stairs. His hair stuck up in several different directions and his glasses sat crooked on his narrow face. Alex followed him inside and turned to go into the kitchen, only to find that the door was closed. He hadn't even realized that the kitchen _had_ a door. It was wood on the top and bottom, with small strips of moulding that made a grid of glass panes in the middle. Through the windows, Alex could see Danielle, Agnes, and Catie holed up inside. A large bowl sat on the table, and Agnes was pulling bits of dough out of it and pressing them in the bottom of a pie dish. Danielle crouched in front of the oven window, carefully scrutinizing whatever was inside, and Catie was washing dishes. She stood at the sink up to her elbows in soapy water that dripped onto the front of her baggy t-shirt. She wore black sweatpants, and her coppery hair was pulled back into a sloppy, tangled ponytail. The color had returned to her face, and she definitely looked okay.

Alex remembered how she'd looked when she had first woken up. Even after taking a shower and brushing her hair, Catie had looked . . . _emaciated_. She wasn't painfully thin or malnourished, but something in her face, the liveliness of her eyes, had been eaten away and hollowed out. She had looked more like a reanimated corpse than a human being, and that scared Alex, as much as he hated to admit it, because he knew that he had looked the same way. For years, he felt like a dead person walking, numb and dissociated from reality.

He didn't want Catie to end up the same way. She had people who cared about her, who needed her.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Alex raised his hand and knocked thrice on one of the glass panes.

Danielle glanced over. Her face brightened when she saw him and she jumped to her feet, running around the table to unlock the door and yank it open.

"Alex!"

He held out his arms to hug her as she stood on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. She smelled like cinnamon and. . . pumpkin?

"What are you cooking?" he asked, pulling away.

She grinned. "Pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, according to Nic, and Catie wanted to get started tonight."

"It's almost eleven."

"And?"

Alex reached out to ruffle her hair and when she slapped his hand away, he poked her in the stomach, making her lips twitch into a grin as she shoved his shoulder. It was good to see her happy.

Suddenly, Danielle froze as her eyes widened. " _Hi_."

Oh, right. Sebastian.

Alex glanced over his shoulder and stepped past Danielle into the kitchen. "Sebastian, Danielle. My sister. Sebastian is here to check on Catie on behalf of her father."

"Please tell me you didn't pick the music," Sebastian said by way of introduction. "Taylor Swift? _Really?_ "

Blushing furiously, Danielle bit her lip. "No. That was Catie."

Catie flipped off the sink faucet, wiped the soapy bubbles off her arms with a dishtowel, and waved to Sebastian. "I'm fine!"

"Yeah. I can see," Sebastian grimaced. "I completely forgot Thanksgiving's tomorrow. _Sh-_ "

" _Language_ ," Catie said loudly. "My sister is nine years old. And you're welcome to join us."

"I'll think about it. Anyways, you're alive, and everyone's in one piece, so I'm going."

Danielle slid past him to get out of the kitchen. "I'll show you the door."

After they left, Alex turned back towards Catie, who was watching him closely. She looked almost afraid. "Are you _really_ okay?"

"Yeah," she said, but her voice was brittle. "I'm fine."

* * *

Later, when all food preparation was finished for the night and the younger Blakemores were asleep, Alex was cornered by Danielle in the sunroom. She glowered at him with her hands on her hips, and Alex had seen enough arguments between the Daniels' to know that she was irritated.

"What's wrong?" he asked warily.

"What did you do to Catie?" Danielle hissed. "She's _really_ moody, Alex."

"Well, maybe that's a side effect of being _drugged_ -"

"No, not moody like tired, moody like _sad_." Her eyes searched his face, making him want to look away.

"I, uh." Alex cleared his throat. "I might've been a little insensitive when she woke up?"

Danielle rolled her eyes and grabbed him by the sleeve, pulling him out of the sunroom. "She's on the front porch. Go apologize. She's done so much for us, it's the least you can do."

"But-"

" _Alex._ "

He was too tired to argue, but as he started towards the front door, she said, "Did you hear about what happened yesterday?"

"No," he replied, still facing away from her. "What?"

"Someone broke in," Danielle said quietly. "While I was here with the kids."

He whirled around. " _Are you okay_?"

"Ssh, you'll wake them. We're fine. They're all a bit shaken up though."

"Do the police know who did it? Does Ben know what happened?"

"No. We didn't see anyone. And I don't know if Ben knows." Danielle bit her lip, her usual nervous tic. "Maybe Mr. Blakemore told him today."

"Dani-"

"Really, Alex." She gave him a tired smile, and for the first time he could see the dark circles under her eyes. "It's fine."

Even as she went upstairs, leaving him to go find Catie, he couldn't help but worry about her. She was just starting to get her life back on track now that she was free from her mother and that bastard drug dealer, but if she derailed again . . . Alex wasn't sure she could come back.

Momentarily telling himself to forget those thoughts, he glanced through the front door and saw Catie's silhouette sitting on the front steps with a rectangle-shaped bottle next to her. Worry seized his chest as he pushed open the door and stepped out. "Aren't you too young to drink?"

Catie barely glanced over her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

He crossed the porch, standing over her. "The bottle."

"Oh." With the faintest hint of a smile, she held it up to him. It was plastic-bottled Fiji spring water. _Oh._

Suddenly feeling incredibly stupid, Alex sat down next to her. "Sorry. It looked like vodka, or some other kind of liquor."

"And how would _you_ know what those bottles looked like, Alex Rider?"

He grunted but said nothing else.

After a few minutes, she smiled bitterly at the boards between her feet. "Well, thanks for the concern." Sarcasm dripped off every single word.

"Hey, I'm sorry about what happened after you woke up," Alex said slowly, trying to think of the right thing to say. "I was . . . rude."

" _Rude_? You acted like I was the most inconvenient thing that ever happened to you." Her voice was entirely quiet. Alex would have felt better if she'd yelled at him. "Maybe it would have been easier for you if I had died and the bad guys thought I was Danielle, but I'm not, and I'm not apologizing."

He felt like she had stabbed an ice-cold knife into his chest. " _What_? If I thought we'd be better off if you were dead, I wouldn't have committed a bloody _crime_ to get you out of that hospital. I wanted - want - you alive." _Because I could never forgive myself if you died._

Catie shifted, turning her head to look at him. Most of her hair had escaped its ponytail to hang around her face, framing her dark, glistening eyes. Even though her eyes were wet, her voice was steady. "I had nightmares. There were snakes, and a field, and-" her voice broke for a second but she cleared her throat, shaking her head. "-And everything was dead. And then there was this _voice_ , and it came from somewhere, asking me about you. What you did, why you were here. It said it was going to kill me."

Alex frowned in the darkness. He thought Elise hadn't interrogated her, just drugged her. If she had lied about that . . . what other lies had she told? "I'm so sorry, Catie. I didn't want any of this to happen. You were right, you know, about the guy in the cafe. He's wanted internationally." He sighed heavily. If only he could go back in time. "I should have listened to you."

"Yeah, well." She wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged her knees to her chest. "You couldn't have known. I can handle it." Her last words were spoken with no small amount of bitterness and anger.

"Catie-"

"Oh, it's not just you. My mother waited _twenty years_ to leave Dad, almost as soon as I turned eighteen. Like, 'oh, Catie's old enough! She can parent my kids.' _Ha_. Agnes is still traumatized from being kidnapped, and now she doesn't even have a _Mom_." Catie sniffed. Alex resisted the sudden urge to put his arm around her. "Now you're here, with your own story and life, and suddenly . . ."

"Everything changed. I know."

"Do you really, though?"

"Yeah." Alex stared straight ahead and didn't look at her. "When I met Danielle - well, it was really bad. Everything was. Suddenly all these people came back, and things started happening. . . it was crazy. And before that-"

"Someone died."

His words suddenly grew heavy on his tongue. " _Yes_."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not trying to make excuses. I just- well. It's hard. And I guess I should have - yeah, I should have realized that it's hard for you too."

Catie reached for her water bottle and took a long drink, not replying, but Alex understood. Talking was hard. It was unpleasant. It was also completely necessary, because in case anything bad happened, well . . . Alex didn't want Catie to think that he wished she had died. That kind of thinking could haunt a person for the rest of their life.

"So," Catie said. Alex had lost track of time. "What happened to you?"

He felt the familiar twist of dread in his gut, thinking that she was referring to his earlier assignments for MI6, but she gestured to his chest with a forced smile.

"Your shirt," Catie elaborated, her smile genuine this time. "Buttons are missing, it looks like someone tried to yank it off you. So, was Senator Lady unable to resist your British charm?"

His jaw dropped as he stared her indignantly, feeling his face heat up as he realized what she was jokingly implying.c" _Catherine_ _Blakemore!"_

She must have been able to see his expression even in the dark because she laughed, covering her mouth even though he could see the outline of her shoulders shaking with mirth.

"I'm sorry," she giggled, trying to stay serious as he elbowed her until she leaned away. "Don't use my full name, I hate it."

Alex scowled at her. "Yeah, well, for your information, I was removing a microphone from my collar - stop _laughing_ , Catherine - rather hastily."

"Oh, right," Catie said with a matter-of-fact nod, trying to smother a grin. "I'm sure -"

"Don't even finish that sentence."

She was silent again, but seemed considerably happier even if it was at Alex's expense. After a few moments, she yawned and glanced at her watch. "It's after one. You should go to sleep. I'm sure you have a long day of defusing bombs and stalking phone calls tomorrow."

"What about you?"

"I'm not tired." She looked away, and it was obvious that she was lying.

"Catie."

"Okay, I've read articles that say that if you've had anesthesia it could kill you in your sleep. Side effects. It's probably stupid, but whatever." She shrugged.

"Huh." Alex had never heard anything like that before. "Well, maybe you could sleep on the couch or something and at least be upright."

"Maybe."

His eyes flickered over to her face. She was definitely scared.

"I can stay with you, if you want. I usually don't sleep much." _You know, catastrophic nightmares and all._

"Oh, how touching," said a third voice from the walkway in front of them.

Catie screamed and flinched, grabbing Alex's forearm so tightly that he would probably have bruises later. But bruises were the least of his worries, because he was staring into the darkened face of Galen Troy.

* * *

 **Please review :) 3**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Hey look at me updating exactly a week later, such productivity! Also, this is the longest chapter so far.**

 **Happy (early) Independence Day to all you Americans!**

 **Don't forget to review :)**

* * *

Alex stared for a moment, horrified. How had he missed the _convicted felon_ creeping up through the Blakemore's front yard?

 _Because you were distracted_ , he silently berated himself. _You weren't paying attention._

His brain started churning out possible ideas, all involving Catie miraculously escaping and being able to call for help. But, if she got away, then everyone inside the house would know something was wrong, which would put them in danger too.

Alex processed all this in under a second, and he stared straight at Troy and tried to summon the familiar, numbing calm that had allowed him to survive his missions with MI6.

"Catie, go inside," he said to Troy.

Catie's grip on his arm didn't loosen, which was just as well because Troy gestured to her with what was undoubtedly the silhouette of a gun, as Alex had expected him to do, and ordered, "Catie, stay right where you are."

She made a small noise and Alex wanted to look at her, but he didn't dare take his eyes off Troy.

"What do you want?" Alex growled, frantically trying to stall, to come up with a plan, any plan that could help him. . . but there was none. This was the perfect ambush. No blazing guns or backup, just one man, his gun, and two teenagers outside a house full of kids. Troy must know that Alex couldn't hope to raise any kind of alarm, not with the kids inside, and Catie . . . she was just fortunate collateral, right? They were both sitting ducks, huddled together on the stairs with railings on either side and the raised surface of the porch behind them. The easiest way out would be forward, right where Troy was standing.

"I'm not going to _kill_ you," Troy said, moving closer. "You don't _just_ deserve death."

The porch light shone on his face. He looked just like he had in England, only more unbalanced. There was something in his face that made Alex instinctively want to recoil.

It was a look of madness.

Troy's eyes were a bright, harsh kind of blue, and now they glinted like razors. He had a slash across the left side of his face - a scar? - and it rippled as the muscles in his jaw clenched. He was about average height but stocky, definitely heavier than Alex. Any hand-to-hand combat with him would be risky, especially because he was armed.

"So, Catie." Troy gestured to her with the gun again, and Alex felt her tense up beside him. "You're Randal's brat, yeah? Get over here."

When Catie didn't move, he sighed and pulled back the safety catch on his gun. Alex wished he could see what model it was, maybe then he could figure out the best way to jam it.

" _Catie_ ," Alex said quietly.

Slowly, her grip on his arm slackened as she got to her feet, keeping her arms clamped down to her sides, and walked with slow, jerky steps over to Troy. Alex counted her paces. Okay, she was five steps away, and he was taller so his stride was a little longer. He could get to Troy in three steps, maybe two if he lunged.

Alex started to stand up as Troy's left hand clamped down around Catie's wrist and yanked her next to him as his other hand brought the gun up so that the barrel rested against her forehead. Acutely aware that the safety on the gun was now off, Alex closed his eyes for a second. What could he _do_? He couldn't let Troy take Catie away, if he wasn't going to shoot her where she stood.

His foot knocked against something on the porch: Catie's water bottle. At the same time, he realized that his phone was still in his pocket.

He had an idea.

* * *

Danielle was having trouble sleeping. She restlessly rolled over, making the mattress squeak against the creaky floor in Catie's bedroom. Agnes was sound asleep, buried beneath a pile of blankets and stuffed animals, so Danielle wasn't worried about waking her.

What was taking Alex and Catie so long? It had been nearly an hour, surely they should be inside.

 _Unless something happened_ , Danielle thought, feeling the familiar spike of worry in her chest even as she tried to ignore the irrational thought. Nothing was wrong. She was okay. Everyone was okay.

She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but she just couldn't relax. Her mind continued to whirr, spinning out memories of people, nightmares, and other things that usually plagued her sleep.

Sleeplessness was an ordeal that she was very familiar with. Most nights of her childhood, she hadn't been able to sleep from the noise that her mother had made, yelling, banging things down on counters and tables, cursing a husband that had never come home. During those nights, Danielle would lock the door to her bedroom and huddle farther beneath the mountain of clothes on her bed that she used for warmth because she didn't have a blanket. She would squeeze her eyes shut and try to think of happier things, of music or her friends, because that was safer than flipping on her lamp and reading a book. Sometimes, her mother had stormed into her room and flung the door open so hard that the knob dented the plaster of the opposite wall.

" _You look just like_ him _! You're barely my child!"_

Now, Danielle swung her legs off her mattress and got to her feet, swaying from a sudden rush of dizziness. She stumbled through the darkness, feeling for the door to the hallway, and managed to get to the bathroom. After flipping on the dimmest light, Danielle leaned over the sink with her palms pressed flat against the smooth, cold surface and stared at her red-eyed reflection in the mirror. She just wanted to _sleep_. Even here, in the States, she wasn't safe or free. The dreams would always be with her.

Suddenly, Danielle heard a faint noise from downstairs. It sounded a lot like a scream.

* * *

Alex knew the light cast a shadow to his left, near the railing, so he subtly shifted his weight so that his left side was covered by the darkness. The street was dark too, no lightposts, no other houses had their front lights on, there was only night. A circle of night, with Alex, Troy, and Catie in the middle.

He slid his hand into the pocket of his trousers and felt around for his phone, gingerly removing it.

Then Troy spoke again, and Alex nearly dropped the phone to the porch stairs.

"Do you know why I want to kill him, Catie?"

Alex risked a glance at her. She was shaking her head, eyes wide with fear.

There was a dull, sickening thud and she cried out in pain. Alex felt a great and terrible rage rise up inside him, thundering through his blood as every fibre in his body wanted to fly at Troy and beat him into the dirt. He forced himself to stay still but the rush of adrenaline made his hands tremble as he tried to use his left hand to pry the back off of his phone.

 _Just a few more seconds. A minute. Please._

"Answer me," Troy snarled.

" _No_ ," Catie sniffed, hurrying to add, "I don't know why."

"He killed my wife."

There it was, the damning mantra that Alex heard over and over again every time he closed his eyes. _Murderer. Failure. It should have been you_.

 _No_ , he silently commanded himself. _Focus._

He didn't look at Catie again. He didn't want to see the shock-horror-revulsion that he was sure was on her face, because that was the normal, human response to hearing that someone was a murderer, even if it wasn't true. Which it wasn't. Part of Alex wanted to protest and argue that Agent Troy's death, five years ago, wasn't his fault. She and that other CIA agent, Carter, had gone ahead underwater to see about a cave. . . they couldn't have known that the cave had been tampered with and rigged with motion sensors so that whenever a living thing swam inside, the top of the cave came crashing down with deadly stalactites to skewer and kill the animal had been unfortunate enough to venture inside.

Or in this case, the humans.

Even _thinking_ about that day made Alex feel sick to his stomach, as if he was going to double over and puke any moment, but now was not the time for that. He _had_ to stay in control of his mind, otherwise Catie was going to die.

"You want to know who else he's killed?" Troy continued, making Alex's stomach twist in dread. "Another kid, some freak who was _engineered_ to look just like him."

Julius Grief.

"Alex-" Catie began, but her voice faded and died in the cold evening air. Alex still didn't meet her eyes. He had finally pried the back of his phone off and was now tracing the outline of the battery with his thumb, feeling the surrounding circuitry for the familiar metal catch. . . there it was.

With a soft _snick_ , the battery slot released the warm, rectangular, _lithium_ battery into his palm. Now, all Alex had to do was somehow peel open part of the insulating casing, which was easier said than done.

"He's right, Catie," Alex said, clearing his throat as his voice rasped. He had to keep stalling. "I did kill a fourteen-year-old kid. I was fourteen, too. And that kid had just killed the only person that I had left because he was a _psychopath_. But I didn't shoot him because of that. No, " Alex managed to wedge his thumbnail into a small crack where the parts of the battery casing had been welded together, "He was trying to kill me too."

Another idea came to him. "That was your revenge, Galen Troy. I was alone too."

* * *

Danielle felt her way down the stairs in the dark, gripping the railing so tightly that her fingers ached. She crossed the kitchen and stood on her toes to lean over the sink and move the window curtain aside.

What she saw nearly made her scream.

Troy, _Galen Troy_ , the convicted felon who wouldn't settle until Alex was destroyed and dead, was standing on the Blakemore's front sidewalk with a gun pointed at Catie's bleeding face.

Alex was standing on the stairs, seemingly frozen in place, with a horrible look on his face as if the world was collapsing around him. Which, in a way, it was.

Danielle recoiled from the window, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process, and fumbled blindly for the phone on the counter. When she finally grabbed it, she punched in Mr. Blakemore's cell phone number with a trembling finger.

" _Hello_?" his voice crackled over the line after the second ring.

"Troy's here," Danielle breathed. "He has Catie. Do I-"

" _Don't call the police,"_ Mr. Blakemore shouted, loud enough that Danielle yanked the phone away from her ear. " _Hold on. I'm almost home."_

The line went dead with a final-sounding click, and Danielle sank to the floor with her head in her hands.

Fragments of ideas whirled through her mind so fast that she barely had a chance to latch onto a single thought. _Troy. Troy August Mum Drugs Fire Ow._

Should she go outside?

 _No_! Her mind screamed.

Danielle had to agree. She couldn't possibly help Alex. She wasn't strong, she wasn't a spy. . .

Helplessness washed over her as she sat on the kitchen floor, her head back against the cabinet door. She was only a few metres away from her brother but there was a wall and a madman with a gun between them.

* * *

Alex knew that Troy was too far gone to reason with, but he still had to try. Reason was his last chance if he didn't open this battery soon.

"You moved on!" Troy yelled, and Alex grimaced. He'd wake up the entire neighborhood. "You couldn't have cared about her if you didn't grieve-"

 _Oh, if only you knew._ Alex was out of his depth rolled his eyes with a short, impatient sigh and shifted his weight to his right leg, trying to pretend that being cornered on the porch by a lunatic was an everyday occurrence. "Look. If you were here to kill _me_ , I would be dead. You're not a killer, Troy. You left me alive back at the theatre. You haven't killed Catie yet. Sure, you _say_ you're trying to run around and ruin my life, but you haven't _done_ anything yet. Even now, you're holding ba- _ack_." Alex ground out the last word as he finally jammed his nail into the battery cartridge. Judging by the pain lancing up his thumb, the entire nail had snapped off.

He felt the battery widen as one side was cracked open. Inside, the internal circuitry and wiring was copper and lithium.

Now he just had to get to the water bottle. And open it. And since the battery wouldn't fit inside the opening, figure out how to get water onto lithium.

Lithium, Alex knew, was in the first column of chemical elements. That meant that it would react violently - and explosively - with water.

For a second, Alex dared to hope that he had gotten to Troy, but in the next second Troy silently stepped back and, faster than Alex could see, kicked Catie's legs. Her arms flailed out as she fell to her knees and he jammed the barrel of his gun to the back of her head.

She was shaking. Alex felt the blood drain from his face as she raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were full of fear and terror, but her mouth was drawn back in pain. It was then that he noticed the dark blood dripping down the right side of her face from a cut above her eyebrow.

That thud from a couple moments ago - that had been Troy's gun, striking Catie in the face.

And now he was going to execute her.

 _Three steps. Two if I lunge. She's in the way, right in front of him. Coward._

"I am not joking, Alex Rider," Troy said coldly. "You _will_ die. But first, you will suffer. You will suffer like I suffered. And for you, the best way to make you suffer is to-"

Suddenly, up the street, tires squealed against pavement harsh and loudly as a black SUV sped around the corner, headlights turned to their highest, blinding setting as the car drove towards them, fast enough that Alex was certain it wasn't going to brake.

Troy paused for a second, glancing back over his shoulder, and Alex used his momentary distraction to bend down, uncap the water, and throw the open battery towards him. It clattered to the sidewalk. Alex started to yell at Catie to move because the car was coming and it wasn't stopping and Troy still had a gun but she was already gone, rolling onto side out of the way.

Launching himself off the porch, Alex overturned the water on the battery and dove for Catie, hooking his hands under her arms and hauling her out of the way. For a terrible second, nothing happened.

Then, as Troy turned around with a murderous gaze, the battery exploded with a brilliant flash of light and a cloud of smoke. He stumbled backwards into the street with a hacking cough, right into the path of the oncoming vehicle.

Catie gasped, horrified, but Alex gently let her fall back to the grass as the car stopped with centimetres to spare and Mr. Blakemore got out with something in his hand.

He faced Troy, who straightened up and squared his shoulders with the look of a tragically defeated soldier. "Randal."

"Galen. Get the _fuck_ away from my daughter."

Troy lunged with a punch that Mr. Blakemore dodged under and straightened up to slam his elbow down on Troy's right shoulder, making him fall to the ground with a groan. Satisfied, Mr. Blakemore turned around and -

" _NO!"_ Alex shouted loud and raw as a flicker of motion caught his eye and he saw Troy, cradling his right arm, reach for his gun. As he started to run his legs felt leaden because he was too far away, too far , too -

The bang echoed through the neighborhood.

Mr. Blakemore fell to the grass.

Catie screamed and rocked to her feet, trying to run to her father, but Alex caught her around the waist and tightened his grip even as she punched and hit and pummeled his arms to try and break free.

" _LET GO OF ME!"_ she sobbed, screaming, and finally Alex released her. He felt numb all over. This couldn't be happening. Mr. Blakemore wasn't dead.

She ran over to Mr. Blakemore and fell to her knees beside him. He stirred, mumbling something that Alex was too far away to hear, but Alex didn't care as he whipped around, intending to stop Troy or die trying, but Troy was gone.

Alex ran over to the SUV and checked under it, inside, everywhere around the circle of street, but Galen Troy had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

He was gone, as if he had melted into the shadows.

As if he'd never existed.

* * *

Mr. Blakemore wasn't too badly injured. The bullet had entered the muscle on his left hamstring and exited without clipping the bone, which rendered the wound much easier to stitch up and repair even though he still had to stay at the hospital overnight. He was advised by the paramedic not to walk for the next ten days, but Alex was guessing that the suggestion wouldn't hold.

Mr. Blakemore had insisted on driving himself to urgent care, not wanting Catie to be dragged into the investigation with any questions that the doctor would ask, as the law required all suspicious injuries to be reported to the police. Given Mr. Blakemore's line of employment, Alex figured he could probably get around that particular stipulation.

In the kitchen, Catie had just gotten off the phone with her dad. She set the handheld receiver back into its cradle and felt behind her on the counter's surface for her mug of tea. Her eyes were glazed over with residual shock, but she had enough presence of mind to be able to talk to her dad and send her siblings back up to bed. They had been woken up by the commotion outside.

Alex walked into the living room where Danielle was sitting hunched over on the couch, hugging herself. The leather upholstery creaked as he sat next to her.

"Hey. You okay?"

She scooted closer to him and leaned against his shoulder with a small sigh. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I should have done something else-"

"No," He interrupted her. "Don't start thinking like that. You can't - you can't do everything. How did you know?"

"That something was wrong?"

"Yeah."

Danielle bit her lip. "I couldn't sleep. There was this feeling, you know? Like something awful was wrong. So I got up and went to get some water, and I heard Catie scream."

"That's incredible." Alex shook his head, still not believing the sheer _luck_ of it. "If you hadn't called Blakemore, we would've both been dead."

"Don't say that." She fidgeted with the silver pendant on her necklace and frowned, her brow wrinkling. "Your bomb thing was pretty brilliant."

Alex felt his left thumb give a sudden throb when she mentioned the battery incident and remembered that he needed to wash the blood off his hands and bandage up the raw tip of his thumb. The nail _had_ been completely torn off.

As far as injuries went, Alex was doing pretty well this time. Nothing permanent, at any rate, which was more than he could say for most of his other missions

Danielle glanced at his hand. "You should take care of that."

He stood. "Yeah."

When he went back to the kitchen, he held his hand under the steady flow of tap water until most of the drying blood was washed off. There was a First Aid kit on the table from Catie cleaning up the damage to her forehead - the cut wasn't deep, she hadn't put anything on it, but she would have a massive bruise - so Alex fished out a piece of gauze and bandage tape with his good hand.

"Here." Catie pushed back her chair and used her foot to kick it over to him. "Let me help you."

"It's fine-"

She gently but firmly shoved him down into the chair and grabbed his left hand. With quick, jerky movements she tore off strips of gauze, wrapped them around his thumb, and practically mummified it with the roll of tape. Definitely overkill, given that Alex had dealt with much more severe injuries, but he kept his mouth shut except to thank her when she finished.

"Was any of it true?" Catie asked suddenly, her voice sharp.

Startled, Alex looked up and met her gaze, seeing the myriad of questions on her face. He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. "Yeah."

"How much?"

"Everything I said."

"Did you really kill Tr - _that man's_ \- wife?"

". . . No."

"God." Catie sniffed and plunked down in the chair opposite Alex, leaning to the side to rest her elbow against the table. Her eyes were red. "What about the kid?"

"His name was Julius."

"So he- he was, like, _made_?"

Alex nodded woodenly.

" _What_ kind of psychopath-"

"Dr. Grief."

"You're kidding. That was his name? Good grie- good lord, that's such a villain-y name." Catie's fingers drummed against the tabletop as she scrutinized Alex's face, making him feel slightly uncomfortable. Her inhaler sat right next to her hand just in case her asthma started acting up again. She had come inside coughing and wheezing, and for one terrifying second Alex had thought that something had happened and she was still going to die.

"You're bleeding again," Alex said abruptly as he noticed the red beads forming on the cut above her eyebrow. "You might need stitches." He offered her a cotton ball.

"No, it's okay." Catie dabbed it against her forehead, wincing.

"You don't like to let people do things for you."

"And you do?"

Well, she had him there. "Whatever. Hey, you should try and sleep."

She snorted. "Right, like _that_ will be happening tonight."

"Seriously," Alex sighed, "Your body needs to repair itself."

She glowered at the table and mumbled something under her breath.

"Sorry, what?"

"What about my _mind_?"

Alex hadn't been expecting that, because suddenly he looked at Catie and really saw her, saw the blood matted in her hair and the stiff way she was holding one of her legs from where Troy had kicked her, and the dark shadow of a bruise on the right side of her face, and the small, scared, fractured look in her dark eyes as she suddenly leaned forward with her head in her hands and started crying.

He didn't know what to do but reached out anyways, and Catie seemed to take that as some sort of signal because she hugged him, almost falling out of her chair so Alex quickly knelt on the floor and wrapped his arms more securely around her. She sobbed wretchedly, her entire body trembling as he hugged - no, _held_ \- her. He could feel her tears soaking into his shirt where her face was pressed against his chest.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, sniffing. "I'm not like you, I can't-" her voice broke, and suddenly she was clinging to him like a drowning man. "I thought I was going to die. I thought that I was dead."

* * *

Catie Blakemore had never been more embarrassed in her life than when she finally came back to her normal, rational, _controlled_ self. She rubbed her eyes on her sleeve and tried to pull away from Alex, but even has her mind told her to _stop being a kid get away_ , her body instinctively stayed frozen.

"Sorry," she rasped, dragging her sleeve across her eyes again and clearing her throat.

"Don't worry about it."

She shifted, crossing her legs and lacing her hands together. Her legs were sore from being pressed against the cold tiles. "It's so embarrassing."

"You're fine. Really."

 _I'm scared._ No matter what she did, drank, or ate, Catie couldn't shake that horrible unsteady feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if the ground had been yanked out from beneath her feet and she was falling into a bottomless abyss. The feeling had started when _that man_ appeared on the sidewalk outside. She wondered if it was ever going to stop.

She knew that she wouldn't forget that rush of paralyzing, overwhelming fear for a very long time. The way her knees and arms had locked up and refused to move, all her nerves screaming at her because of the cold metal barrel jammed against her head, the realization that it was really there and she was one involuntary - or deliberate - twitch away from never coming back. Her last sight would have been Alex, angry but afraid.

"I've never been that scared before," she mumbled.

Alex gently jostled her shoulder. "I would hope not."

She looked up at his face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I hope nothing you've done has been more terrifying than being the short-time hostage of a psychopath with a gun." The words rolled off his tongue with ease as if they were a phrase he had delivered several times before. He shifted to the side, reaching up towards the counter for one of two ceramic cups that he had to stretch to get his fingers around.

Catie took the first one from him. "Coffee? At this hour?"

"Decaf. Danielle made them."

Hmm. Catie vaguely remembered something about Danielle coming into the kitchen with another man, someone fit with short dark hair and olive skin. That was probably the point where her mind hit its limit of _weird things with no warning_ and mercifully forced her to zone out from reality.

"Decaf coffee is a tragedy," she murmured as she stared at the steam curling off the liquid. That was all she could think to say besides _could you please tell me that I've dreamed the last three hours because that's all I really want to hear and I feel like I'm going crazy,_ which wouldn't exactly suffice.

Alex agreed. "Indeed. Hey, there are two other guys here. One's MI6. The other is - is SAS, that's Special Air Service. They'll be here until your dad gets back."

She slowly sat up and pushed herself to her feet, swaying unsteadily for a moment from a sudden rush of vertigo. "Where?"

Alex almost managed to cover up a grimace as he got to his feet, arching his back outwards and stretching his arms out. He pushed his shaggy hair out of his face and gestured towards the living room. Catie stepped aside so she could follow him.

 _His hair's nice_ , she thought to herself, _Like a painting._ Her mind wandered back to the National Gallery of Art and the exhibit of ancient Icons from eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, remembering how happy she always felt in that museum. Looking at art was like escaping to an entirely different world inside someone else's mind. She wished she had an escape now.

Danielle was sitting on the couch next to a slender, tall man with brown hair just long enough to appear wavy, who was showing her how to access the different functions of a brand-new looking Swiss Army Knife. Catie trailed after Alex as he sighed, straightened his shoulders, and walked around the front of the couch.

"Ben, this is Catherine. Catie." Alex gestured to her with a wide sweep of his arm, and she was suddenly very conscious of how wretched she looked as the man turned to look at her. He had kind eyes but a hardened face that crinkled into a friendly smile when he saw her. No doubt he had been a soldier, but there was something in his face that made Catie think that this man - Ben - was more like Alex. Or maybe Alex was more like him.

"Catie," Alex continued. "Ben Daniels."

She lifted her fingers in a small wave, which was about as much movement as she could manage.

Ben patted the couch next to him. "Do you want to sit down? You probably should. Here, Danielle's knife is . . ." he launched into a succinct explanation of what exactly the knife was supposed to do and why he had it, while Danielle shot Catie a look over his shoulder that screamed ' _help me'_. For the first time, Catie almost felt like smiling. She sat down next to Ben, far away enough not to touch him, and tried to listen.

* * *

Alex stepped back out onto the front porch as Catie settled in with Ben and Danielle. Instantly, he saw Galen Troy standing in the middle of the sidewalk with a gun.

"Screw off," he muttered at the memory.

Someone shifted near the stairs. Wolf. "Any particular reason that you're out here?"

"Curiosity."

"For?"

As Alex's eyes adjusted he could see Wolf, hidden mostly by the shadows, standing inside the pocket of shadows in the garden bed beside the stair rail. "He disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air. _How_?"

Wolf grunted. "I dunno. Look, there's stuff set up around the back and sides of the house. Don't let the _kids_ out." He said _kids_ as if he meant something else, probably _brats_.

Alex descended the stairs and wandered down the footpath towards the street. Skid marks marred the road from Mr. Blakemore's SUV, and nearby . . . well, there was nothing except a sewer drain across the street.

"There's no way," Alex muttered, but he started towards the drain.

" _Cub_."

Bristling at the nickname, Alex hurried his pace until he knelt down over the heavy metal cover that had been hauled away from the pipeline.

That could explain the materializing and vanishing. Still, the thought that Galen Troy lowering himself to the point of climbing through a sewer seemed a bit outlandish. The man had taken the most lavish hotel in London and filled it with all manner of illegal firearms and listening devices. He seemed to like nice things, clever things. A pipeline was none of those.

Or was it?

Alex glared at the dark, gaping entrance to the pipe, feeling tempted to crawl down now and see what awaited him, but he knew better than that by now. Going in alone was too impulsive, too dangerous. Besides, what if Troy _wanted_ him to find the uncovered drain? Sure, he could have been in a hurry to leave with his injured shoulder, but he had shot Mr. Blakemore. Alex and Catie hadn't had any protection. So why run?

Alex wanted to scream in pure, unadulterated frustration. Why all the mind games?

 _Because they work,_ he thought grimly. Indeed, Troy had been very successful in manipulating and trapping him. He could get inside Alex's head, know where his loyalties were.

And now Troy was aware that Catie could easily be a bargaining chip. That meant that Alex couldn't simply leave the Blakemore's house. Catie would be wide open.

Besides, a small, selfish part of him wanted to stay there. Catie was clearly out of her depth. She had _cried_ , for heaven's sake, completely broken down. She would be different now. Everyone changed in some way after their first near-death experience.

Alex reluctantly returned to the Blakemore's front yard.

"Anything good?" Wolf muttered.

Unsure if he detected sarcasm in his voice, Alex merely shrugged as he went back inside.

* * *

By the time Ben had gone outside with Wolf, Danielle and Catie were sitting on the living room floor around the coffee table with some kind of board game spread out in front of them. Alex had his earbuds jammed into his ears and was watching one of his old recordings of the _Sibelius Violin Concerto_ on Danielle's phone. Unfortunately if not surprisingly, he'd hardly had any time to think about music or school in the past few weeks.

Catie eventually went upstairs for a shower, only after swearing Alex and Danielle to secrecy about the details of the night's events in case the twins or Agnes woke up. The younger Blakemores knew that _something_ had happened; the noise had woken them. Catie stated in very clear terms that neither the twins nor Agnes were to know anything about the gun, which Alex understood. That would terrify most little kids.

Danielle stood up and swung her arms up in a stretch. "Can we go outside?"

Alex shook his head. "Wouldn't be the best idea. Besides, it's four in the morning. You've been up all night, go to sleep."

"I don't know." She swung her arms around in front of her and hugged herself. "I'm already awake."

"You could Skype Tom. "

"Shut up."

"Make me."

She snatched a pillow off the couch and half-heartedly chucked it at his head. Ducking, Alex readjusted his position on the couch and tried to distract himself with the recording. He lost track of Danielle when she wandered to another part of the house and resisted the urge to follow her, see if she was really okay. The past few months she had calmed down, not panicking as much - at least, not during the day - and not acting as nervous around Ben and K Unit, but that was probably because she had taken to spending most days out at the Academy, so she was rarely at home when they came over to see Ben.

Then there was the incident with the break-in and, now, the incident with Troy. Danielle had done exactly the right things in both situations.

Alex was proud of her. Of course he was. But he also hated that she had grown accustomed to situations of imminent danger, because that was just another sign of the troubles the past year had brought to her. Part of him wished Danielle was more like Catie, still able to be shocked and horrified at the lengths people will go to for revenge and other short-lived victories.

As Alex listened to the concerto, his mind drifted back to the events of the case with Troy. Music always helped him think. So, the hospital - Elise was there. Alex hadn't recognized her, having only seen her once or twice before she vanished, and Troy was too. He'd tried to kill Catie via lethal injection, but . . .

Had Elise _really_ intended to save Catie, or had her action been twisted further into Troy's plan?

And there was that woman, that aide, Christie Dome, who was dead because of a flash drive jammed halfway down her throat.

The dead man, who'd dragged Alex into this entire mess.

Between Troy, Christie, and the Arab, there was only one thing in common: The Senator. Either Troy was using her, or she was using him. Alex was more inclined to believe the prior.

He glanced back at the video playing on the YouTube app just as the angle switched during an interlude to focus on Danielle, who had offered to accompany Alex for that performance, and the image tugged at Alex's memory. Something about the light, the way it hit her arm. . .

 _The pictures!_ Alex had almost forgotten. The entire reason Danielle was here was the envelope of glossy, professional-grade stalker photos of her that Alex had received back in Blakemore's office. Had that really been only a few weeks ago? He had been worried. Panicked, even.

" _Delivery for Alex Rider."_

 _Alex slowly got to his feet, chair creaking, and strode over to the door. "Do I have to sign anything?"_

" _No," said the man, handing him the envelope. "I was instructed by the Director to deliver it personally."_

 _Dread sank deep inside Alex's stomach as soon as his hand touched the thick paper. From the weight of the envelope, he guessed it was filled with papers of some sort - his file? Was this some crude attempt at blackmail?_

" _The Director?" Elise asked, her lips pursing. "Must be from your people."_

Elise had been the first to suggest that the contents were from MI6 and her suggestion had momentarily caused Alex to think that Danielle was in some kind of danger due to MI6 blacklisting him for working with Blakemore. So, Alex had reluctantly agreed with Blakemore that Danielle should fly over and visit.

Then, later, the mercenary's camera was found in the backyard.

Alex got to his feet and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and frantically rummaged around the papers on his desk in search of the familiar envelope. Where was it? For a moment, panic seized his chest as he feared that the envelope had been stolen, but then he saw the corner peeking out of the top drawer. He yanked on the handle hard enough to jostle the entire desk and lifted the envelope up by the bottom, shaking the glossy photographs out onto the carpet.

 _You've gotta hide stuff better_ , he thought absently as he searched through them. _You're lucky the twins didn't find this. Or Agnes._

Maybe there was a way to check the photos against the camera that the FBI had confiscated to see if they were taken by it.

Alex could feel himself getting closer to the connections between all these seemingly random events, but the bigger picture continued to elude him. Why wasn't he dead? Why hadn't Troy just shot Catie where she sat, instead of taking her hostage? He had taunted Alex, wanting him to see how helpless he was to do anything. . .

Shaking his head, Alex gathered up the photographs and shoved them under his mattress. He would have to ask Blakemore when he returned.

Someone knocked on his door. "Alex?"

He got to his feet as Catie leaned against his doorway, wet hair dripping onto her purple shirt. "Hey."

" _Hey_. Um," she glanced down for a second then hesitantly looked up. "Were you serious earlier?"

"About what?" he asked, confused.

"Staying up downstairs. With me. Because I don't think - I don't think I can sleep."

As soon as she said _sleep_ , Alex felt all the energy drain from his limbs as the buzzing adrenaline rush finally petered out. He wanted to say no and collapse onto his bed to sleep for twelve hours, but he _had_ been serious even if that was before a psychopath showed up in the front yard.

"Sure," he said.

* * *

The next morning, Alex woke up to the smell of pancakes with an overwhelming sense of _deja vu_ to the first morning he had met Catie. She'd been cooking downstairs and singing something in French, something he'd understood immediately. What was it? _I've told you, you have that smile when you_. . . lie? Had that been it? Whatever. Alex rolled off the couch and stretched, pushing his spine out in an arc as several parts popped and cracked from the unusual sleeping position.

"Well, took _you_ long enough to wake up," someone said from across the room.

Alex stifled a yawn as he glanced over at Danielle, who sat curled in one of the plush arm chairs with an oversized mug of coffee in her hands and a newspaper balanced on her lap. Her pale face made the dark circles under her eyes stand out even more but at least she was smiling.

"What time is it?" Alex asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.

She carefully set her mug on her leg to check the watch on her wrist. "Around eight. You were out for almost four hours."

"You look like you have two black eyes."

"Thanks, Alex."

"Any time."

Danielle rolled her eyes and turned to another section of the newspaper with an aggressive rustling noise. "Go back to sleep."

Instead, Alex wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. His throat felt like he had tried to chug an entire litre of acid. Was he getting sick? No. No, that was _not_ an option.

Catie was in the kitchen and she was talking to _Wolf_ of all people, a sight surreal enough to make Alex wonder if he was dreaming. Since when did Wolf come inside?

 _Since you were sleeping,_ Alex thought to himself as he tried to slide unnoticed into the room, reaching for one of the cabinet doors.

"Hey Alex," Catie said, breaking off her conversation with Wolf.

With an internal groan, he turned and forced himself to smile. "Hey."

Wolf pushed his chair back and stood, pushing a plate back across the table. "Thanks for cooking, Catie. You have excellent taste in music."

Her eyes flicked down for a second but she was smiling despite the faint blush on her face. "Thanks."

Alex resisted the urge to roll his eyes in favor of wondering what kind of magic Catie had worked to make Wolf. . . human. "What music?"

"The Cure," Catie replied.

Wolf snorted. "Don't bother. He won't know."

Alex scowled at his retreating figure as he shoved his cup under the tap and yanked the faucet on, watching the frothy water rise.

"He's nice," Catie said noncommittally.

Glancing over his shoulder, Alex saw her carefully prying cooked pancakes off the bottom of a frying pan. Her hair fell in soft, shiny waves over her shoulders. "You think?"

"Yeah. But also kind of terrifying. Like a wolf."

"Very much like that."

"So, how's the hand?"

He glanced down at the bandages on his thumb. "It's fine. Could be worse."

"I'm guessing you've probably had worse, but still." Catie handed him a plate. The bottom was warm from the hot pancakes, eggs, and bacon on it. "I'm making breakfast because I don't think I can make dinner."

"Thanks. Hey, Catie. . ." he faltered. Now that she was facing him, he could see the angry bruise blooming around the right side of her face. The skin around the cut from Troy's gun was purple, fading to black around her eye and forehead. She raised her eyebrows, silently prompting him to continue. "Uh - how are you feeling?"

"It's fine," she mimicked him. "Could be worse."

He made a face at her as she gave a light, tired laugh and leaned back against the counter with her arms braced against the edge. "Does Danielle want food?"

"Yes," Danielle said, and it was then that Alex realized she was standing in the doorway. "Thanks, Catie."

Two sets of footsteps thundered down the stairs as Agnes and Nic appeared, both still in their pajamas. Agnes gasped when she saw Catie. "Catie! What happened to your face?"

"Yeah," Nic added, suspicious. "There was all that noise last night."

"There was a car wreck," Alex said quickly as Catie seemed to be at a loss for words. "Right in front of your house. Someone almost hit your dad's car. Catie ran over to help, but. . ." he gave her a quick glance. "The door flew open and hit her."

Agnes frowned as Vince sleepily stumbled down the stairs. "Where's Daddy?"

"He'll be home soon," Catie reassured her. "He had to go see the doctors. Everything's fine. Now, go sit down in the sunroom, okay?"

Nic started to protest, but Danielle managed to usher him, his brother, and Agnes out of the room before he could say anything else.

"I hate lying to them," Catie muttered after they left.

"Yeah, me too," Alex said, and he was surprised that he meant it.

* * *

So far, there were no sightings of Troy, which wasn't entirely surprising given that he seemed to be able to materialize and vanish at will. The Blakemore's backyard was rigged with enough wireless motion sensors and security cameras that any person coming from that direction was bound to trip some kind of alarm and the front yard was being observed by a team of FBI agents from various discrete vantage points. There had been some talk of moving the Blakemore children to a more appropriate location, but as soon as Catie got wind of that suggestion she flat-out refused to even entertain the idea. In fact, she managed to slip her siblings out through the front door to her car and took them out ice skating.

After they left, Alex texted Sebastian and asked him to go to the rink and keep an eye on them.

"Good idea," Danielle muttered. She was pacing restlessly from the living room to the kitchen with her hands jammed into her jacket pockets and her shoulders hunched up around her neck, trying to hide how nervous she was feeling, but Alex knew her well enough to see that she was uneasy.

"I'm really sorry that you got dragged into this," he said. "I didn't mean for it to happen." Speaking of which, the photographs were currently being analyzed to see if the Serbian mercenary was the person who'd been stalking Danielle.

"Eh." She shrugged, pausing to hover by the kitchen door. "It goes with the territory."

"Unfortunately."

Ben pushed his way inside through the front door, holding his ID in one hand and his phone in the other. His face was flushed from the cold. He looked directly at Alex. "I need to talk to you."

Alex swung around to face him. "What is it?"

Instead of speaking, Ben let his eyes slide over to Danielle, and Alex gave her a pitying look.

"Oh, come on," she complained, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

"Sorry," Ben said. He didn't sound very apologetic. "Please, Danielle."

"But-"

" _Leave!_ "

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her and, after staring at him for a second, spun on her heel and stormed out of the living room. The sound of a door slamming echoed from another room.

Sensing that something was seriously wrong, Alex refrained from telling off Ben for snapping at Danielle and instead sat down in an armchair as he waited for Ben to say what apparently only Alex could hear.

"Alex," Ben started, but his voice died in his throat as he reached up and rubbed his forehead with a heavy sigh, suddenly seeming infinitely older than just twenty-six. "Alex. Everything has gone to _hell_."

* * *

 **A/N #2: LET ME JUST SAY that the lithium and water idea came from an experiment we did in Chemistry a few years ago where we did pry open old cell phone batteries. However, this was done in full safety gear because of electrical charges and violent chemical reactions. Do not try this at home.**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N**

Third time's the charm, apparently! I've tried to post this 2 times now and it hasn't gone through quite the way I wanted so here we go, last try:

I'm sorry to say that I'm putting this story on Hiatus.

To make a very long story short, I want to enroll in an elective this semester that's completely outside my major and you have to submit an application with a sample of your writing, fiction and nonfiction. And that application is due August 2nd and I'm massively behind. So, until I get my life and deadlines and applications and final exams for summer credits together, I'm going to put this on hold, because if I'm going to spend a few months without updating it might as well be official.

{Also, I'm planning to rewrite Agitato at some point in the near future because there are some massive errors with it that are driving me absolutely crazy. Mainly characterization and plotline etc. (I guess this is the point to mention that I wrote that story when I was fifteen and didn't bother to edit it much before starting to upload chapters years later. I was looking through it the other day and having such a massive cringe attack because _dang_ I write so much better than that, especially that I've been putting more time into original work agh.) So yes, I will be fixing all that soon.

ANYWAYS, thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this! You guys are the best! I'll be back soon :)


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N** : Hey! Bet no one expected to see _this_ resurrected anytime soon. SURPRISE! Well, this is a short filler chapter - there will either be another short chapter sometime soon or a longer chapter in like a month because college has basically drop kicked me to the land of _absolutely no time to do anything_.

As always, thank you so much for reading!

* * *

"What do you mean?" Alex demanded.

Ben set his phone and ID on the coffee table with carefully controlled movements, tension evident in the way he held his rigid posture. "You're not the only one who's been blacklisted, Alex. I'm ruined. Wolf was _dishonorably discharged_ in his absence, without a trial, without him present to offer a defense to whatever fake charges they came up with."

Alex was floored. There was no way, _no way_ that MI6 could do that. Ben and Wolf were in America on orders from Jones herself, what higher authority was there who had jurisdiction over international operations?

"What - what are - what are the _charges_?" he asked, mumbling, suddenly overwhelmed by a surge of vertigo.

Ben pressed his mouth together into a thin line. "The incident with Catie. Somehow, it got classified as a kidnapping."

"That's - that is -" Alex stammered to a halt as horror washed over him. _That was my idea._ This was all his fault.

"It's not your fault," Ben said as if reading his mind. "There wasn't any other option. But since this isn't our territory. . ."

"And it happened on your watch."

Ben had a positively murderous glower on his face. "And Wolf mentioned in passing one of the operations that the dead Arab was involved in, that was enough to get him in trouble."

"But who _told_ them?" Alex growled. He had his suspicions. Elise couldn't have, but there were other members on Blakemore's team, others who could be easily swayed to do _favors_ here and there. . .

"When Wolf stops swearing I'll ask if he remembers who he talked to," said Ben. "But it gets worse."

 _Fantastic._ "How so?" Alex knew from the grim expression on Ben's face that the answer was something he did _not_ want to hear.

"The Americans met with staff from the Saudi Arabian embassy. They warned us off investigating Troy, threatening to close down the site."

" _Close_ it?"

"Yeah."

"There's something going on, then."

"I'm glad you've finally noticed, Alex," Ben said flatly, and Alex didn't miss the sarcasm dripping from his words. "Something _huge_ , if threatening to close down the Saudi embassy in the U.S. is anything to go by. That's - that's severing diplomatic relations, completely."

Alex reached up and pushed his hair back with both hands. "What did Blakemore's people say?"

"They assured the people they met with that there were no intentions of continuing the investigation."

"But we have to continue the investigation-"

"We are. It's unofficial now."

 _Great_ , thought Alex. _This day gets better and better._

"We'll talk to Blakemore about this when he gets back," Ben said upon noticing that Alex had nothing further to say. "He'll be back in a few hours."

* * *

Mr. Blakemore was home shortly after one in the afternoon and just before his kids returned. He looked older and tired, the lines around his face were more evident and his hair definitely looked more grey than brown. He had a pair of crutches and a tight, layered bandage wrapped around his left thigh even though the wound had been stitched up.

"Where's Catie?" was his first question when he walked into the kitchen without the crutches.

"She took the kids out to the ice rink," Alex replied, standing from his chair at the table. His stomach was growling; he'd intended to try to find something to eat. "The twins were asking too much about Ben and Wolf."

He grunted. "They would. Brilliant idea last night, with the battery."

"Desperate measures."

"Well, keep some more of those _measures_ around. We'll need them. I have to say, it just hadn't sunk in that _Galen_ was the enemy this time around. Not until last night."

"Yeah," Alex nodded in agreement. "I know what you mean. It never seemed like he was really _here_ , in this area, until he appeared."

"How _did_ that happen?"

Alex quickly reiterated the previous night's events for what had to be the fourth time since stumbling inside at half past one in the morning. Unlike the others, Blakemore nodded as if Alex's story was confirming something he'd already thought of.

"That's Galen's style. He did love anything with a flourish - it was what killed him, really. His career, I mean." Mr. Blakemore lowered himself into one of the chairs with only the slightest hint of a pained grimace. Hopefully he'd gotten some kind of painkiller. "So, how much do you know about Ga - about Troy?"

"Well. He was in London last spring, with ties to a well-known drug dealer. He came after me about eight different times. Ben Daniels was seriously injured in a car wreck, Danielle was assaulted and poisoned, my flat exploded, and another acquaintance was also poisoned." Alex shook his head. "I still don't und - I'm not clear on that, why go to all that trouble for - for nothing?"

Blakemore lifted his shoulders in a shrug without saying anything right away. "We never really knew with him."

"Was he always so . . ." Alex searched for an adjective that wouldn't be insulting to Blakemore's former partner. " _Erratic_?"

"You can call him crazy. Insane. Demented. All of the above. And no, he wasn't, but he was definitely heading that way before his wife died in the accident. It can happen to any agent, really, even the good ones." Blakemore paused and gave Alex a long, searching look that made Alex feel as if his very soul was being scrutinized. " _Especially_ the good ones. You see too much, and it gets to you."

Alex had suspected that Blakemore knew more about his post-MI6 years than he would have preferred and now he shifted uncomfortably and kept his silence, not wanting to let on to anything he didn't want to talk about.

"So," Blakemore continued. "Obviously Troy isn't right in the head, which could explain the series of random attempts on you and your friends. He wasn't thinking, just throwing everything in his arsenal at you, but you proved to be more resistant than he'd expected. . ."

"He hired other groups too," Alex muttered. "Even tried to make it look the the IRA was involved. Trying to assassinate the Prime Minister."

"Interesting."

"I think he planned everything." Now that he was talking, Alex couldn't stop himself, and suddenly he was telling Mr. Blakemore something he hadn't told anyone else yet. "I think he planned everything to batter us and wear us down, to make us think it was something else when it wasn't. That's how he shot me. I think he's doing the same thing now, like blowing smoke into a cave to see what runs out." He stopped talking and breathed heavily, hands clenched at his sides What was he doing? Why were the words coming now, of all times, to an agent that didn't know half of what had happened? He expected Blakemore to ridicule him, brush him aside as an underling with less experience and worse ideas.

Instead, Blakemore simply said, "You're right."

Alex blinked. _Really_?

"Except for one part. We're already in his trap, Alex. They're watchers all up and down the street - not just our people, his too. Mercenaries, thugs, who knows. Our Serbian friend let on that he wasn't Troy's only hired gun."

Suddenly, Alex wasn't hungry anymore, quite the opposite. "Did you see them?"

"I did."

"Is there any way to get out?"

"Maybe, but. . ." Mr. Blakemore trailed off and looked towards the front door as footsteps scuffled on the front porch. "The kids are back."

As the door swung open and hit the door with a thud, Alex realized that he had forgotten to ask Agent Blakemore about the unofficial nature of their investigation.

* * *

Danielle was having an awful time of it. According to the twins, most families spent Thanksgiving watching football - the kind with goalposts and end zones - and eating turkey, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Just Danielle's luck to be in the middle of the one family who happened to be involved in Alex's stupid assignment. Not that it was his fault; he hadn't even wanted to get on the plane back in Heathrow. But he was here now . . . well, not really.

Alex was an entire world away in his thoughts and planning, just like the other men were, and Danielle was stuck somewhere in between.

Alex wasn't the only one having trouble with this affair.

Danielle still felt embarrassed about relying on Ben so much, especially after she started living with him and his wife. After he sent her out, yelled at her, she'd retreated to the living room and struck up a game of chess with Vince, who won easily. Her heart wasn't in the game and her mind was thousands of miles away. If only

But she was alone. No, she was lonely. That was the problem.

She'd just managed to get her thoughts back together, with no small amount of silent ridicule because she was being _such a brat_ and there were other people in the world besides her whose problems were much more important, when Catie suggested they go ice skating. That helped take her mind off - well, she couldn't even put a name to what was bothering her - and she was in a considerably better mood by the time they returned to Catie's house.

After Danielle ushered the younger Blakemores inside, she ducked into the stairwell and hurried up to her temporary bed, a mattress on the floor of Catie and Agnes' room. Reaching under the mattress, she pulled out the sheaf of print outs that she had procured from Mr. Blakemore's desktop computer and reread the paragraphs of highlighted text. There was information about money, scholarships, auditions, programs. . . so much to think about, and she only had a few more months to decide what she was going to do.

She sighed.

Most of these numbers were committed into her memory from staring at them over and over. What she didn't know was how she was going to pay anything if she decided to-

Sudden footsteps hurrying up the stairs startled Danielle into shoving the sheaf of papers back under her bed just as Catie rounded the top of the stairs.

"Hey," Catie said. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Danielle replied with a small smile, sitting back on her heels. "Just tired."

"This is crazy," Catie waved her hands around in an aimless gesture. "I can't - I can't believe it."

"Feels like a dream."

"Exactly."

Catie sat down heavily on the edge of her bed with a sigh, one of her hands coming up to rub at the sore spot on her forehead, and glowered at the carpeting. Her face twisted suddenly and she looked up, locking eyes with Danielle. "Does this happen to you all the time?"

"Not really," Danielle said slowly. "At least, it didn't until earlier this year." _Has it really been less than a year?_

"How did you survive?"

"Unhealthy coping mechanisms included but not limited to overpracticing simple repertoire, hiding in classrooms and pretending to study, and doing homework."

"Sounds about right," Catie muttered. "I'm so tired."

"It's exhausting."

"More than this, though."

"Mhm." Danielle yawned, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her as the adrenaline rush from the last few hours wore off. "Can I justify napping yet?"

Standing, Catie walked over to the door and pushed it shut. "I would, but I need to check on the kids."

"I'm sure Alex can handle them."

"I don't know how much he can handle."

Surprised, Danielle blinked sleepily at Catie. She hadn't expected Catie to say - or notice - anything like that, and wondered if Catie was even aware of what she had just said.

"I don't know either," she whispered.

* * *

After a thirty-minute nap, Danielle was woken by Catie's alarm. She rolled over and flung her arm over her eyes as her body screamed at her to sleep for the rest of the day, but Catie's muffled groan and subsequent footsteps kept her from falling back asleep.

"That was nice," Catie yawned.

"The house isn't on fire so I guess everything's fine," Danielle said as she got to her feet and checked her phone, seeing two new messages from Tom and smiling despite the horrible day she was having. As she was about to leave, an impulse made her grab the papers from under her mattress and shove them folded into her pocket. She ventured downstairs in search of water and was surprised to find the kitchen deserted. The ground floor of the house was unusually quiet without the noise of the twins' video games - maybe they were upstairs?

"Danielle."

She pivoted sharply towards the sound of her name. Ben had appeared in the doorway to the living room, his forehead creased in concern.

"Hey," she said, then quickly added, "Is everything okay?"

"Not really, if you want the truth, but it will be soon."

Danielle appreciated that he didn't try and tell her flat-out that everything was fine. At least that was something. "Okay."

"I wanted to apologize for earlier-"

"It's fine," she hurriedly cut him off, feeling her face get all itchy and warm like it did right before she blushed. "I understand." She had acted like a brat anyways. Truthfully, she was still embarrassed about how much she depended on the Daniels, especially since she had started living with them. The thought of one day being just another burden to them hung in her mind, haunting her, and she tried not to get in their way.

"Even so," he said gently, and it was _that voice_ , the Dad-Brother-Friend- _Something_ voice that almost always made her tear up because she wasn't used to having someone speak to her so earnestly, without wanting anything back. Ben Daniels was like Tom - and that was the thing about Tom Harris that _terrified_ Danielle, the fact that he seemed to like her as she was, which was impossible because she was a trainwreck in every way imaginable.

"Well, thanks then," Danielle said as her stomach twisted uncomfortable. She blinked hard to keep back tears and slid past Ben to sit on the couch.

Seeming to understand, he sat down next to her.

The papers slid out of her pocket.

"What're those?" Ben asked, gesturing at them.

"Nothing- well, here." Handing them over, Danielle braced herself for the worst.

Ben's eyes quickly scanned the text and he frowned. "Music school auditions?"

"I'm - I'm thinking of moving."

"Anything in particular?"

"Well, I was thinking that - thinking that it would be easier to go to school in the States, because there are more teaching jobs or whatever that I can do to earn my way through school, and you and Gwen probably need me to leave with the baby-"

"Whoa, whoa. We're not kicking you out, Danielle, we're _happy_ to have you with us. It's really no trouble."

Danielle bit her lip. "I just feel like I'm always in the way. And it's not your fault, really. And there are other reasons too, like Tom. I don't know if us being friends is the best idea."

Ben raised his eyebrows, the hint of a smile playing across his mouth. "Danielle?"

"Yes?"

"Worry about that later," he said. "You're going to drive yourself crazy. You're not a problem, and you have a fantastic scholarship at the Academy."

She was silent for a few minutes. "Hey, Ben?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm worried about Alex."

He gave a long, slow sigh. "I am too."

"He just seems like - like he's going to fall apart at a moment's notice, and go back to the way he was when I met him. I really don't want to see that happen again but Troy. . ."

Ben nodded, rubbing his short hair. "I know. We need him to pull it together, it's the only way we're gonna make it through this thing."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** sorry for the double alert but I'm reformatting :) I won't be able to update consistently but I do want to start writing this again! Thank you a for reading and reviewing :)

* * *

In the end, it was the rain that roused Alex from a deep, thorough, and wholly unflattering contemplation of Galen Troy's character. He stood from his desk to draw the blinds and sat back on his bed, staring at the carpet. All the ideas he was able to conjure involved using someone as bait, and that was the one thing he refused to touch, not after what Troy did to Catie, someone Alex barely knew.

The look of utter terror on her face was burned into his mind, and it blazed at him whenever he tried to close his eyes. She was scared, so scared, and it was his fault. Why had he let her go outsided? Why had he tried to push her away when _of course_ she would be feeling unsteady and disoriented?

He reached up and ran his hands through his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead as he tried to think. If only there was someone he could bounce ideas off - well, there was always Ben or Wolf, but they probably wouldn't listen - or who he could ask for ideas.

As intelligent and successful as Ben and Wolf were, they still thought he was . . . fragile. Wavering, even. And okay, Alex hadn't shown them his best with the August affair back in London, but now he was really _trying_ , and that hadn't stopped things from spiraling out of control faster than he could handle. He had spent this entire game catching up, reacting to the pictures of Danielle, reacting to the Arab's death, reacting to Catie's injury, reacting to Troy. He wanted to _act_ , to claw and drag himself ahead of Troy for _one moment_ , just enough to get back some semblance of the control he had sorely missed.

He was used to being able to improvise on the spot and to only being responsible for himself, but now the wrong improvisations could kill someone else, someone he cared about.

A knock on the door drew Alex out of his musings.

"Yeah?"

Danielle stuck her head in and smiled at him. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, how are _you_? With seeing Troy again, and-"

"Honestly?" She shook her head as something faltered in her face and Alex felt an all-too-familiar twist of concern for her. "I'm really scared. For you. And also because of when he - when he was in August's -"

Alex stood. "Come on, sit down." he moved to the floor and she sat opposite him with her chin in her hands. "Danielle, I'd be a little more worried if you weren't scared."

"Yeah." She sniffed, a watery smile on her face. "I don't know, I guess it's just that Catie's house seemed so _safe_ and removed from everything. . . it was easy to imagine that none of it was really happening."

"And then you wake up and there's a certifiable psychopath standing outside."

"You were outside too." Her lower lip trembled. "That was terrifying. He had Catie and I thought - I thought for sure you were gonna die, because you're like that. You'd have taken that gun to the face for her, or a bullet." She gave him a searching glance through narrowed eyes. "I can _tell_."

"Dani." Alex reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, don't worry. Besides, Catie's in one piece. She's worse off than me."

"How's your hand?"

"Annoyingly painful but healing."

Danielle looked over his shoulder at something and got to her feet, wandering over to his desk. There were pages of paper covered with half-coherent notes and the envelope that held the pictures of her in it. Alex realized he should tell her about those, so he jumped to his feet and hurried to place his hand on the envelope just as she reached for it.

She gave him a questioning look. "What's in there?"

"I meant to tell you about these," Alex began. "Honestly, I did. But things piled up and I forgot. These are the reason I brought you here." He removed his hand and she took the envelope, unceremoniously overturning it and letting the pictures fall out onto her desk.

Danielle's face remained mostly impassive as she flipped through each one, smearing fingerprints on the glossy images, but Alex did see her lips twitch once or twice. She was becoming more adept at masking her emotions, not as candid as she used to be. Alex wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"I have a stalker?" she finally asked, holding up a picture of her leaving the grocer.

"It was just to scare me, probably into going back to London to be with you," Alex said, halfway lying. He still had his doubts over whether or not the pictures were supposed to be a catalyst to get him to bring Danielle to the States.

"Ah. So you decided to bring me here because of this? And here I was, thinking you had finally relented in your overbearing ways." Grinning, she bumped her shoulder into his. "No, I figured there was something up."

"Hey," Alex tried to defend himself. "It wasn't entirely thoughtless. I thought you'd get along with Catie."

" _Yes_ , Catie." There was a spark in her eyes. Alex knew that look. It told him something provocative was coming. "Do you like her?"

Well, he wasn't expecting _that_ , but knowing Danielle, he should have. "I think most people do. I'm going to make coffee. Want some?"

"You never answered my question!" she protested as he turned and jogged down the stairs, almost running into Catie who happened to be crossing the kitchen at that very moment with a dish of something that smelled incredible in her hands. "Sorry," she shifted the dish to one arm and tilted her head to the side. "What question?"

"Something about school," Alex quickly lied. "Have you seen Wo - Luke?"

"In the living room with Dad," replied Catie. "They kicked us all out."

"Oh really? Where are the kids?"

"Sunroom. I wouldn't go in there, they're playing Apples to Apples with - what's his name? Ben?"

Alex grinned at the image of Ben babysitting the younger Blakemores, and figured that he had been excluded from whatever was being discussed by Agent Blakemore and Wolf so he could claim plausible deniability of any operation if MI6 re-acknowledged his existence. That option was long gone for him, so he knocked on the door to the living room and opened it without waiting for a reply.

Blakemore and Luke were sitting across from each other at the coffee table, Blakemore pensively staring at a piece of paper in front of him with his injured leg stretched out flat on the floor and Wolf leaning forward with a restless tension in his posture.

"Alex." Blakemore looked up at him, seemingly unsurprised. "I was hoping you'd be down soon. We have a proposal for you."

What? Wolf gave Alex an unreadable glance with his brow furrowed, which served to make Alex's suspicions rise. "What is it?" He maneuvered around the couch to sit at the end closer to Blakemore so he could read the piece of paper that captivated the American's attention. There was a name and address scrawled across the top.

 _Jillian Baker_

 _1209 Woodridge Drive_

 _Arlington, Virginia_

"Troy has a sister," Wolf began, clasping his hands together. "Best we can tell, she severed all contact with him over a decade ago. Married an accountant. Two kids, a boy and a girl. She lives about forty-five minutes away."

Alex braced his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. "Are we going to see her?"

"What's interesting," Blakemore cut in as Wolf was about to speak. "Are the police reports for her neighborhood. She's made several calls to the emergency line citing trespassers, vandalism, and threats made to her. Oddly enough, she denies that she knows who may be doing these things."

 _It has to be Troy_ , Alex thought. He had no trouble imagining Troy to be the kind of man to shake down his own sister for money if the need arose.

"We think she gave him the money for that bank transfer," Wolf said. "Under duress. If we can get her to testify or sign an _affidavit_ , that's enough to arrest Troy without us being involved."

Smart. Get Troy on intimidation, vandalism, and battery and he goes to jail with no mention of MI6 or the FBI, which would protect everyone in the Blakemore's house.

"He'll know it's us," said Alex after a short silence. "He'll know."

"Probably," Mr. Blakemore agreed. "I'm sending you, Luke, Danielle and Sebastian out to Arlington tomorrow. Today, Alex, there's something else I want you to do."

"What is it?" Alex was hoping he would be able to do some research or recon somewhere. The restless itch to get moving on the case had plagued him since last night and he was ready to do something, anything, to get ahead of Troy.

"Convince my eldest daughter that she needs stitches. Her head's been bleeding all morning."

Oh. Alex barely stifled a sigh. "Yes, sir."

* * *

Danielle let her foot slide off the _sostenuto_ pedal on the piano, resulting in a soft _thunk_ as it ratcheted back up into place. The sustained chord still reverberated through the room while the sonata's final triad faded away. She abruptly stood and nudged the bench back under the keyboard with her leg before turning to pace around the room. An uneasy restlessness had pervaded her motions since last night and no matter how many times she walked around the house to reassure herself that everyone was inside and alive, she couldn't shake the dread that something else was going to happen. Perhaps she was becoming paranoid.

"You done?" Alex's voice was muffled by the sunroom door. He knocked once, softly, before the knob twisted.

"Yeah," Danielle replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "What's up?"

He stepped smoothly into the room and shut the door behind him. "I have a question for you."

"You have that look on your face. What are you going to ask me to do that you don't want to ask me to do?"

With a tight grin, he sat down in one of the plastic lounge chairs. "What on _earth_ makes you think-"

"Alex."

"Okay." He sighed heavily. "Long, long story short. Do you want to go to Arlington tomorrow?"

The next morning dawned dreary and overcast as grey clouds covered the sky. A crisp, bitter chill hung in the air, and the Blakemore twins had been in the garage since the early hours of the morning waxing their sleds in hope of snow.

Sebastian had pulled up to the curb in a faded blue station wagon around seven in the morning. Alex let Danielle sit up next to him, where she turned the heat on full blast despite having borrowed a heavy coat from Catie.

Once they were safely on highway 66, Sebastian glanced over at Danielle.

"Danielle, talk to me. What are we doing today?"

"We're going to visit Jillian Baker and her family, because she's Troy's sister and might know where he can be found. What if Troy's _there?_ "

"We've had someone on the house for about thirty-six hours," Sebastian replied. "No sign of him. Now, why are _you_ coming?"

"Because given the number of emergency calls made, you'll look less intimidating if I'm there instead of Luke."

"Not exactly what I was thinking, but fair enough."

"Less intimidating until she starts talking," Alex muttered from the backseat.

Danielle glanced in the mirror on her visor, her eyes flashing at him. "I'm sorry, Alex, did you say something?"

"Absolutely not."

"Excellent."

* * *

The house was modest in size but not in mortgage, as Arlington was known as one of the more expensive cities to own property in close to D.C. It was filled with commuters and government workers who made their livings on the hill or in corporate but couldn't afford to live in the city itself. Such was the nature of government work.

Jillian Baker lived in a corner lot that had been remodeled and added onto enough times that the structure had the lumpy, misshapen appearance of an architectural project gone awry. Brown shingles covered the undulating roof while the exterior was comprised of white vinyl siding and peeling brick. The windows looked new, double-paned glass with sturdy shutters that actually locked. The door had two layers as well; there was a storm door, the bottom half metal with a panel of screen on the upper half, and a thick wooden door behind that. Each door had a separate locking system.

The front yard was almost nonexistent; between two large bushes on either side of the porch steps and the publicly owned sidewalk, there was a strip of dead grass about a meter in depth that was littered with toys. A faded yellow plastic duck, a wagon of some sort, a sparkly wand with bedraggled streamers lying on the ground. There was no sign of life or inhabitation. The house was designed to keep people out and to hide the people within. Alex couldn't tell if any lights were on inside.

"Kind of creepy," Danielle said quietly.

Alex felt her fingers curl around his wrist for a second and he squeezed her hand. "Maybe they're away for the holiday."

Sebastian shut the driver's door with an obtrusively loud bang that resonated in the silent street. He shoved his keys into his pocket, strode around the front of the car, and ascended the porch stairs. Alex ushered Danielle ahead after him, glancing once more over his shoulder to see if there was anyone watching.

The woman who opened the door looked nothing like the criminal who was her brother. She had light brown hair that fell over her shoulders in ringlets and warm blue eyes flecked with grey. She wore a tan sweater and jeans, and an adorable baby with a single wisp of dark hair and wide blue eyes was perched on her hip.

"Can I help you?" she offered kindly.

Alex didn't trust himself to say anything, taken aback. How could this woman be related to _Troy_?

"We've come about your brother, Ma'am," Sebastian said, already reaching into his jacket for his ID.

Instantly her face hardened. She moved back towards the door, ready to close it. "I haven't seen him in years, and I told you and all his other friends - _I_ _don't have his money._ "

"Unfortunately, we're not his friends." Sebastian showed her his ID, and some of the tension left her posture.

"Oh, thank God," she said, leaning against the door frame. Alex noticed the heavy circles under her eyes. "I'm Jillian. Please, come in."

The doorway led to an open floor, with a kitchen to the left painted in yellow and ivory and a living room to the right with hardwood floor, some kind of Oriental rug, and mismatched furniture. A fireplace was set into the living room wall with a gas fire blazing. Children's toys covered the living room floor and various crayon drawings held places of honor on the fridge.

"Let me get my husband," she murmured as she wrenched the double lock on the door to the side. "He can tell you more about Galen than I can."

* * *

Jillian quickly fetched her husband, a tall man of lean physique with black hair and a day's worth of stubble on his jaw who introduced himself as Augustus Baker, and disappeared into the kitchen to make coffee. Offering to help, Danielle hurried after her.

Alex and Sebastian sat on the couch as Augustus sat in an armchair across from them, staring pensively into the fire.

"She hates talking about Galen," Augustus said after she left. "And rightly so. He tormented her."

"So he has a history of violent or threatening behavior?" asked Sebastian.

Alex had been ready to voice the same question. The subtle changes in Jillian Baker at the very mention of her brother's name were sign enough that she disliked - or feared - him.

"He's . . . _persistent._ We've been married for five years - got married right after college - and he would harass her for money, even though she barely had any. When she was younger, he would push her around. She still has a scar on her arm from one incident." Augustus paused to take in a heavy breath and cup his face in his hands. "Jillian cut him off. Completely. We moved here from Maryland without telling anyone, but two weeks ago . . . she and the kids were out, thank God, but he came by. With a gun. And he wanted money."

His interest piqued, Alex leaned forward on the couch. "I'm assuming you gave it to him."

"Of course!" Augustus stared at him as if he were insane. "He knew where my daughter goes to preschool, the parks where the kids play. I don't know how far he's tracked Jillian, but for her sake. . ."

"Sounds like him."

"Have you met him?"

"Twice. One for lunch, the other time when he was trying to kill me."

Seemingly unsurprised, Augustus gave a single grave nod. His dark eyes suddenly locked onto Alex's face with a scrutinizing intensity that felt both inquisitive and suspicious. The suspicion was understandable; a teenager showing up out of the blue privy to a somewhat official investigation of the United States Government wasn't a typical occurrence in the suburbs.

After a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity, Augustus spoke. "You're the musician from the theater. The one that blew up."

Alex nodded with a grim smile.

"And your sister?"

"The same."

"That was Galen."

". . .Yes. He tried to shoot me in the aftermath." Alex forced the words out as smoothly as possible, as if thinking of the theater didn't instantly shove the smell of burning wood back into his memory or the screams of the injured, terrified, and dying. The newer wound in his stomach twinged with a phantom pain, one that the rest of his body remembered with acute precision. So many things had changed after that night. . . but now was not the time to think such thoughts, so Alex simply finished his sentence with a hard stare at the fraying rug beneath his feet.

"I'm sorry to hear," Augustus said quietly. "That's horrible."

" _Well_ ," Sebastian said in the tone of one attempting to pull a conversation back on topic. "Have you seen Galen since? He was dumped here by the authorities from England a few months ago and sent to prison, which he obviously escaped from. Do you know anything about that?"

"Jillian and I had no idea he was in jail until we saw he'd escaped."

"Funny," Sebastian muttered as he wrote a quick line on his notepad. "That's what everyone's been saying lately."

* * *

Danielle was more than happy to offer to help Jillian, originally because she didn't want to have to dredge up any memories of Troy - Troy in the theater, Troy in August's mansion, anything - and found it vaguely unsettling that Jillian's husband turned out to be named Augustus. His name was too close to August's; it was too close to home.

She held Kolbe, the Baker's youngest child and only son, on her hip while Jillian hurriedly prepared coffee, more for her own benefit than the guests, which Danielle understood. She'd spent countless hours in the kitchen or in the practice room to avoid having to face people who had been with her last spring, for the sickness, the pseudo kidnapping, and the fire. After trying her best to bury those memories to the depths of her subconscious, she still hadn't managed to keep her hands from shaking every time one of them fought its way to the surface. Because of that, she was evading being in Alex's presence for any such discussions. He would just worry unnecessarily, because she was fine. Struggling, but fine. She had to be fine.

"I hope they'll forgive me for hiding in here," Jillian said softly, her voice gentle. "I hate Galen. I know it sounds awful, but part of me was almost beginning to hope he was dead."

Danielle nodded, reaching up to rescue a lock of her hair from Kolbe's chubby fists. He gurgled in response with a wide, toothless smile, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling back at him. "No, I understand. It's hard. Just when you think someone's gone and you start feeling happy again, they reappear and try to drag you back under."

"Exactly."

The kettle boiled, prompting Jillian to pour the hot water over coffee grounds in a large French press. After she finished, she leaned against the counter and pulled her hair over her shoulder as if subconsciously shielding herself. "Did you know him?"

"Your brother?"

A nod.

"No. But he knew someone who knew me. A drug dealer - I didn't do drugs," Danielle hurriedly added, realizing how that sounded. "My - my mother does. I ran away eventually, but he followed me. Because of her." _That's the sketchiest thing you've said while you've been in this country._ "I'm sorry about your brother. That must be so hard."

"It was, at the time, but. . . I don't like talking about Galen, and you know how much I dislike him." Pausing, Jillian pushed her hair behind her ears. "All the same, I've moved on. Mostly."

"How?" Danielle blurted and immediately wished she could take the question back. Her face burned with embarrassment.

"I'll take him," Jillian reached out to gently lift Kolbe into her arms. He smiled happily and reached out to play with the oval medal on her necklace. "Honestly? It's an ongoing process. Part of it is . . . you just have to realize that you can live your own life. I got married, had two kids - and everything changes then. It was - and still is - the best thing ever." She grinned as she disentangled her necklace from Kolbe's fingers with the aim of getting him to stop teething on the medal, then smoothed his wispy hair down.

Struck with a sudden surge of envy, Danielle bit her lip and looked away. Would she ever have a life like that? For the first time since she met Alex, she was starting to realize that she . . . didn't know what she wanted. Now that her life wasn't a matter of surviving day to day, perhaps she could afford to want other things besides music.

 _But I_ love _music._

"Hey," Jillian said, drawing Danielle's attention back to where she was. "Everything gets better, it just takes time. Now, why don't you tell me what Galen has done? Besides escaping from jail."

Danielle blinked hard, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "Okay. Well, he did the bombing at the theater in London. To get Alex. A few years ago, his wife died in an accident, and Tr - Galen - blames Alex for that."

"I didn't realize he was married."

"Were you ever aware that he worked for the government?"

Jillian thought for a few moments, her face pensive. She set her son down on the floor where he started crawling speedily for the living room. "No. But I can believe it. That would explain where he acquired some of his more _expensive_ habits."

"Like what?"

"Drugs - cocaine, I think, from the amount of money he wanted - and gambling. Sometimes he'd come around and it was obvious someone had beat him up."

"Right." Danielle considered that piece of information for a few seconds, frowning, before filing it away for future discussion. "So he owed money?"

"Big time. And he wasn't afraid to try and get it from me - he knew I wouldn't make him pay me back," said Jillian.

"I see."

"How old are you?" Jillian seemed amused. "Aren't you a little young to work for the intelligence services?"

Grinning, Danielle quickly shook her head. "I'm not - I mean, I'm not working with them. I'm eighteen. Alex does. He's helped them before - back home - and he was here to testify against your brother in court, but when he escaped. . ."

"Ah, yes."

Just then, a knock on the door frame startled both women out of their conversation. Danielle glanced over her shoulder at Alex, who stood there with a blandly polite smile. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Baker. May I check with you what your husband has told us to see if there's anything you can add?"

"Of course," Jillian Baker wiped her hands on her jeans and leaned against the counter.

Danielle slipped by Alex back into the living room, pulling the cuffs of her t-shirt down over her hands so that the black striping stretched around her rounded fist. She'd foolishly left her jacket in the car. Sebastian was still talking to Mr. Baker so she decided to wait by the door, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the wall. Her eyes were drawn to the hardwood floor under her feet. She had a hard time believing it was solid because right now it felt like the entire world was shifting under her feet, threatening to fling her off balance. Talking to Jillian had planted several thoughts in her mind that were best saved for thinking about when she was alone or late at night so Danielle tried to push them away without much success.

Within a few minutes, Alex left the kitchen. Upon seeing Alex finish up the last of the investigation-related questioning, Sebastian ended his conversation with Mr. Baker and, after promising to let them both know if anything happened relating to Troy, they left.

"Did you give them your card?" Alex asked as he wrenched open the passenger door of the car, which was sticking from the persistent cold weather.

"Yes," Sebastian replied. He sat down, adjusted his glasses, and turned the car on. "Told them to call if they hear anything from Troy."

"I never would've guessed he had a sister."

"Well, she's nothing like him."

Danielle huddled in the backseat and waited for the heat to reach her. The car was old, and lacked the efficient heating systems of more modern vehicles. Consequently, her fingers were stiff with the chill. She stared out the window as the suburbs slowly turned into browned, empty patches of grass, then highway.

* * *

The morning's endeavour had been fairly disappointing until Alex realized their car was being followed. Sure, it was nice to know more about Troy's habits, but Augustus Baker hadn't known of anything Troy had done aside from being in the CIA, a fact that Mrs. Baker had either not known, ignored, or made herself forget. However, the sudden influx of information did not yield anything substantial, anything that could be seized and acted upon.

"We're being followed," Alex said to Sebastian.

Sebastian stared in the rearview mirror of the car. "Is it the black Prius?"

"Yeah. It pulled onto Jillian's street as we were driving away. What are the chances it was just another neighbor who needed the interstate?"

"Let's see." Sebastian suddenly braked and switched lanes to take an earlier exit that lead south towards, according to the signage, Winchester. The car had barely stopped at the bottom of the ramp when the Prius appeared again, about two hundred feet behind them, also exiting.

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "Okay, so the just-another-neighbor chances are approximately _zero_."

"Great. Here, get in this lane," Alex said, gesturing to a lane that led to an Exxon. "You get petrol-"

"Gasoline."

" -no - and Dani and I'll go inside for coffee or something."

Once the car was safely pulled up alongside one of the pumps, Alex twisted around in his seat to see Danielle's face. "Dani. Can I have your phone? Pull up your hair, or something."

She silently pulled it out of her pocket and handed it over. Alex popped off the back panel and removed the SIM card to hand to Sebastian. By the time he handed the rest of the phone back to her, she'd pulled her hair up into a bun. He blinked. She _did_ look different.

Glancing in the mirror on his visor, he hurriedly tried to part his hair on the opposite side, which resulted in a mess, then opened the door. Danielle was right behind him, glancing at something on her phone.

"Who's in the Prius?" she whispered as Alex held the door to the small store for her.

"I don't know," he replied in a single breath. "I'm hoping to find out. Go get coffee. If anyone else comes in, ignore them."

Danielle nodded and wandered in the general direction of the coffee kiosk, pausing along the way to pull a jacket with the American seal embroidered on it off a rack of clothing and slip it on. It was too big for her but with her hair up and the front unzipped, could pass for a traveller's attire.

Once he was sure she was safe, Alex ducked behind a rack of protein bars so he could see the doors and keep an eye on her.

Within seconds the Prius also pulled over into a parking space instead of at a fuel pump. Alex could see Sebastian doing an excellent job of attempting to shove wrinkled bills into the slot for payment at his station, which was stalling for time.

The driver of the Prius stepped out and took a casual pace, strolling over to the store. His face was partially obscured by the hood of his jacket, but Alex didn't recognize him. Probably one of Troy's hired men. The driver seemed to have an athletic build, broad shoulders, on the taller side of average height. Tanned skin on his face, as if he'd spent a lot of time in the sun. Though his jacket was loose, the fabric on the back panel wrinkled around a spot at the base of his spine, and Alex surmised that he was carrying a gun.

After taking a long look around the space, the driver headed over to get coffee. Danielle was searching for the right sized lid for her cup. Alex heard a low murmur but couldn't distinguish individual words as the man said something to her, but Danielle shrugged in response and pointed at one of the specials listed on the pricing sign. She picked up her two coffees and started towards the cash register, where Alex met her and selected a large bag of some kind of snack food from the shelf.

The cashier was a tired-looking man of about sixty who rang up their purchases with an archaic machine that took an agonizing amount of time to process the data. Alex started to get nervous as each second ticked by. The longer they spent in the station, the higher the risk of them being noticed.

Danielle's seemed impassive belied only by her fingers, which drummed a relentless rhythm against her leg.

Then, abruptly, the Prius driver left his coffee on the counter and went to the restroom. After hearing the door swing shut Alex went back after him and saw a handle on the outside of the door even though the hinges indicated that it opened by pushing. It was an old door, perhaps that accounted for the inconsistency, but no matter. That was exactly the opportunity Alex needed. He pivoted on his heel and scanned the inventory for a suitable item and saw a display of brushes and plastic blades to scrape ice and snow from car windshields. Running over and grabbing one, he shoved it horizontally through the handle so that when the driver pulled to open the door, it would hold fast, blocked by the brush.

By the time he hurried back to the register, his hair flopped over his eyes and Danielle was hovering near the door with a plastic bag and two coffees.

"Is he-"

"Go to the car!" Alex shoved his shoulder against the door to open it. "Hurry!"

Danielle ran across the parking lot and dove into the backseat of Sebastian's car, where Sebastian was calmly waiting as if they had all the time in the world. Once Alex fell into the passenger seat and yanked the door shut, Sebastian maneuvered the car out of the lot fast enough that the tires screeched against the road.

Once they were back on the highway, he looked over at Alex. "What happened?"

"Did you get the card-"

"Yup. We'll pull up the satellite on my laptop. It's encrypted."

"Do that back at the Blakemore's house," Alex said, falling back against the seat with a heavy sigh. He heard rustling as Danielle opened the bag of food he'd bought.

"What'd you get?" Sebastian asked with vested interest.

"Alex got Cheetos. They're pretty good."

"Eh. Incredibly fattening."

"Well," Danielle said through a mouthful of crunching. "My doctor said I needed to gain weight. Also, _what_ did you do to my phone, Alex? And who was that guy? I think I just shoplifted the jacket, by the way." She pulled her hair out of its bun, shaking her head to make it fall over her shoulders.

"Ben put a tracking chip on our SIM cards," Alex said in response to her first question and he grinned at the astonished and insulted look she gave him. "And we have no idea who the guy was, but he was definitely tailing us. I wanted to look just different enough that he couldn't be sure who we were. Did you recognize him? What did he say to you?"

"I don't know. He asked which coffee was best."

"Nice job on the quick change," Sebastian said to Danielle. "With the hair and jacket. You know, you wouldn't be half bad in the Agency."

"Funny, Sebastian, but absolutely not," replied Alex before Danielle could say anything. There was no way in all of the earth that he would ever let Danielle be dragged into anything of the sort, like he was. This was a special circumstance.

Danielle kicked the back of his seat. "Thanks, Sebastian, but I'll pass."

"Shame to waste such talent," he said, but grinned so Danielle knew he was kidding. "So, what did you find out from Jillian Baker?"

"Let's hold off on that, actually," Alex cut in. "Once we're back at the house we can talk to Wolf and Ben, that way we only have to go through it once." He didn't miss the grateful glance that Danielle gave him. He'd noticed something was off with her after they left, and it concerned him. The last thing he wanted was for her to drag up old memories again. From what Augustus Baker had said, there was a good chance that Jillian Baker had a childhood similar to Danielle's, which Alex hadn't known. If he'd been aware, he wouldn't have asked Danielle to go.

* * *

As soon as they arrived back at the Blakemore's house, Alex, Danielle, and Sebastian convened with Wolf, Ben, and Mr. Blakemore up in Alex's room. The consensus was that there was no new information, although the trip out had been useful in proving that Troy had been able to procure some kind of transportation to move around northern Virginia and D.C.

"Any luck on the _affidavit_?" Mr. Blakemore asked.

Sebastian and Alex shared a glance, but Danielle spoke up before either one of them could admit that they hadn't asked.

"Not this time," she said quietly. "I don't think Mrs. Baker would have. She and Troy - she doesn't like him, at all, but she's distanced herself from him."

"Did she anything else?"

"Yeah. While he was in the CIA, he got into expensive - she called them expensive habits." Danielle twisted a piece of her hair around her finger and kept her eyes downcast. "Drugs. And gambling."

"Gambling?" Ben pushed himself away from the wall that he was leaning against to favor his recently injured leg. "Did he owe money?"

"A lot, I think."

"Interesting. Did her husband mention this?" asked Wolf.

"No," Alex said. "I don't think he knew."

"I'll check agency files," Sebastian said. "I can go into the office now. See if there are any records - reports, disciplinary action, the stuff."

"Did you know any of this?" Ben asked Mr. Blakemore.

A deep shadow crossed Agent Blakemore's face as he absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck. "I had my suspicions, once or twice. . . but I never witnessed any gambling or drugs, nothing conclusive. There were rumors, of course, but you know how those are."

Ben smoothed out the wrinkles in his Oxford shirt and adjusted the collar. "I have to head out. Update me."

"Where are you going?" Danielle looked up at him as he stepped over her outstretched legs. "To meet with another agent a representative from the hospital," he replied. "To discuss what happened with Catie."

She grimaced. "Good luck."

"Thanks. We need it."

Sebastian also stood and gathered up his phone and laptop. "I'll check the satellite from the office in case anyone decides to do a reverse tracking. That way the location will come up from Washington instead of your house."

"that's the last thing we need,"muttered Mr. Blakemore.

Alex wholeheartedly agreed. He refused to wait until disaster came to him again.

* * *

Four hours later, the verdict was in: Galen Troy had been suspected of gambling by his colleagues but there was never sufficient evidence to file a claim or an indictment against him. The first of the suspicions involved an assignment at an exclusive night club owned by a Saudi prince. The establishment itself was perfectly legal, but there were whispers about a kingpin in the metropolitan drug scene doing business there so the FBI investigated. It was there the rumors started, of money spent that was never recovered and debts too large for a government worker to play. According to the tracking chip and the satellite, the mystery Prius was parked in a garage near the Mayflower hotel. The hotel was more of a venue, and it was an expensive one.

"Wow," Danielle muttered from where she leaned over Alex's shoulder as they scrolled through pictures of the Mayflower online. "A ball there costs more than my human life."

"Where?" Catie perked up and got up from the couch. "Ooh, the Mayflower hotel. It's gorgeous, isn't it? Especially when they decorate it. Some famous violinist performed there once -Isaac something."

"Itzhak Perlman," Danielle and Alex responded in unison.

Sebastian had returned from the office and was waiting for clearance from the NSA to view satellite images of the Prius' location. He was enjoying a cup of Catie's closely-guarded pressed coffee by the door to the kitchen, and he raised his eyebrows, making them dangerously close to disappearing beneath his bushy hair. "That was creepy. You two are like drones."

Catie laughed and ran her fingers through her hair to push it back from her forehead, but the same section fell back over her eyes. Her resulting exasperated huff made Alex grin, which prompted her to whack him on the shoulder.

"Hey!" he protested. "It's not my fault you-"

"So, Danielle," Catie said loudly before he could finish. "You know how we were googling Alex the other day?"

"You were what?"

"Yeah," Danielle replied, her face lighting up. "We found that picture - excellent leverage-"

Alex knew exactly what picture they were talking about. It definitely didn't showcase one of the better moments of his musical career. Spurred by the memory of it, he elbowed Danielle aside and snatched his laptop off the coffee table before either of the girls could get to it.

"Hey!" Danielle called as he retreated to the kitchen.

Sebastian had followed him in search of the sink to dispose of his now-empty mug. "Am I imagining it, or is there something between you and-"

"You're imagining."

"Right." Just as he was about to continue, his phone rang. He answered it and listened to the voice on the other end for a total of six seconds. When he hung up, he swore bitterly.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked sharply.

Instead of answering, Sebastian pulled his laptop from his messenger bag and used it to connect to the state-sanctioned encrypted email server his team used. He opened a single message and turned the device towards Alex.

Alex's heart sank as he read the contents and by the time he finished he felt the first grip of ice-cold fear wrap around his insides.

"Cesium Chloride."

"It's a dirty bomb, Alex." Sebastian said with a haunted look on his face. "A shipment was intercepted but there may be more. It could render the city uninhabitable for months, even years, to say nothing of the radiation poisoning..."

"Where was it going to?" Alex asked slowly, feeling as if he were living a nightmare.

"Washington. The Mayflower hotel."

Alex's mouth went dry. "Where Troy is."

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:**

Me: I think I can start writing this again

Also me: *doesn't update for 6 months*

Anyways, here's another chapter! It's short, but it's also been a long time coming and there's more to follow. Thank you all for reading!

* * *

"What can we do?" Alex asked. "Troy knows me, obviously, and he's seen Ben and knows Blakemore. Probably Sebastian."

Wolf gave him a curt nod of acknowledgement. "He's probably found out I'm here too. So that lets out staging some kind of infiltration."

"We have to assume we've been compromised," Ben said from where he sat on the carpet with the floorplans of the Mayflower hotel spread out around him. "but there's a receiving bay where the shipment came in. Trucks arrive twice a day, fresh in the morning and frozen to thaw overnight. That's two chances to get inside."

"How do you know that?" Sebastian asked. He'd arrived moments after Blakemore called him. "We can't assume anything."

"Says on their website," Ben said, holding up his phone for reference. "The kitchen caters."

"Ah."

"What company delivers in the evening?" Alex asked. "Send in the dismantling and removal unit with them."

"That would only work," Wolf said, "If there was a way to monitor their progress. Like a surveillance room."

Blakemore picked up his phone from the table. "I know where we can go, but I'm getting my children out of this house. If I'm not here, neither are they. Not after last night."

Ben shuffled through the floorplans of the hotel again and Sebastian sat down to help him figure out the most strategic place for a bomb. They were operating on the assumption that it would be placed for optimal dispersion and damage, to both destroy the building and send the radioactive cesium as far as possible.

"There's a parking garage near the hotel. It's a sound structure," Sebastian muttered, tracing his finger along the lines on the blueprint. "That could be a good place to put a bomb. The falling concrete would do a lot of damage."

"The kids are going to the bookstore on Seventeenth," Blakemore said after getting off the phone. "That's out of the blast radius but close enough to get to them. Alex, go tell Catie."

Alex strode into the kitchen looking for Catie or Danielle, but neither were there. He was going to check upstairs but decided to stop in the sunroom first. Danielle and Catie were sitting side by side on the piano bench, Danielle teaching Catie how to play something that sounded vaguely familiar but Alex couldn't place it.

"Hey," Danielle said when she saw him.

Catie glanced over and gave him somewhat of a sheepish smile. "This is why I quit," she said, jerking her chin towards the piano. "What's up?"

"Your Dad wants you guys to take the twins and Agnes to the bookstore on Seventeenth," Alex replied. "I have no idea what that means, but you need to go now."

Danielle narrowed her eyes. "What's going on, Alex?"

"Nothing. Just do it." After a second, he added, "Please."

"For how long?" Catie asked as she got to her feet with a deceptively calm glance. She had changed into jeans and a red sweater that made the bruise and cut stand out against her skin.

"Until he tells you otherwise."

* * *

At the holding room of the National Geographic Museum, four men stood around a folded-out plastic table that was laden with microphones, transmitters, and a monitor that measured vocal tension. The museum itself was a block East of the hotel. A screen that displayed the security feed from the Mayflower Hotel, which had been finagled onto the remote monitors by, officially, a warrant from the FBI delivered by Sebastian and procured from who-knows-where and, unofficially, by Sebastian flashing his badge and explaining the situation to the hotel manager. As the Mayflower was located half a mile from the White House, the manager complied happily with no questions asked.

Blakemore stood over the live feed and listened intently to the mic in his ear. The feed showed grainy images of the dismantling team entering through the kitchen doors. A large truck had backed up to the loading bay, and a small charge was sufficient to blow out one of the tires. The vehicle listed to one side. Boxes of food crashed upon each other and fell out; some burst, others were dented but otherwise unharmed. In the ensuing chaos, the team quietly slipped into the hotel.

Sebastian and Ben had surmised that the bomb would either be in the parking garage or in the central ballroom, which meant that the dismantling and removal team had to scour two locations in, at the most, twenty minutes.

The members were dressed as waiters but the boxes they carried contained the heavy padded suits and masks meant to protect against shrapnel and contagions. Even though the operation was risky, they had to wait to put on the suits until the last possible moment to avoid alerting the people in the hotel as long as possible. The only staff member aware of their presence was the current shift manager. His employees were only to be told in the event of an unavoidable evacuation.

"We should have evacuated the hotel," Blakemore muttered, shaking his head at the feed. "There's too many people in there, too many lives at stake."

"No," Alex said quietly. "That's what happened in London. They took all the precautions, notified the audience members, had snipers on the balcony of the theater. But none of that mattered because Troy doesn't care how much collateral damage there is."

" _I_ do, Alex." Blakemore glanced over at him with dark, steely eyes that held decades of experience with operations like this one. "We play a different game than the enemy."

"Right, sir."

"When D&R are done, we move out. Immediately. Then we scour every inch of that hotel for any sign of Galen."

Ben adjusted his headset and fiddled with the audio monitor to show a speech feed that spiked and fell with the background noise in the hotel.

Suddenly, Wolf straightened up. "They found it."

Alex belatedly picked up his headset and unwound the cord to it, pulling out the massive knot in the wiring. "Where is it?"

"Parking garage, elevator shaft beneath the entrance to the second floor. It was strapped to the ceiling with enough duct tape to restrain an elephant."

Blakemore yanked off his headset and dropped it in the table. "Alright, move in."

Suddenly the door to the holding room burst open and ricocheted off the wall with a bang. Wolf drew his pistol as he spun around and Alex lunged across the table for the gun Sebastian had given him, but before he flipped the safety off -

" _Alex_!"

It was Catie. She stood there with Vince and Nic front of her and her hands on Agnes' shoulders, and Alex hurried over to her. "Catie? Is everything okay? Where's Danielle?"

"Listen," Catie hissed, yanking him closer. "Troy's not in the hotel. He walked by the bookstore - Danielle _saw_ him, and I did too!"

"Okay. Go!" Alex shoved the Blakemore kids behind him and sprinted after Catie, dodging tourists and workers and ignoring the indignant shouts that trailed after him. He caught up to Catie at the doors and stepped out into the evening light. Night was coming rapidly; the last rays of sunset were fading on the horizon. Soon it would be nearly impossible to find Troy if he was out in the city; there would be too many other people, and telling them apart without drawing attention to themselves would be difficult at best.

"Why didn't you just call?" Alex asked as Catie led them to her dad's SUV, idling on the curb. Danielle was in the passenger seat staring at pedestrians as if cataloguing them in her head, watching for Troy.

"I did, genius. Get in."

"What?" Alex checked his phone. "Oh."

 _3 Missed calls from Catie Blakemore._

 _1 missed call from Danielle._

He cleared his throat. "Sorry about that. You still should have stayed in the store."

"About that," Danielle said as he jumped into the backseat and shut the door behind him. "Troy might have seen us. He turned around. We didn't know for sure so we ran-"

"I thought the kids would be safest with Dad," Catie added. "Now they know what he does. I was supposed to keep that from them."

"No, you did the right thing." Alex didn't bother with the seatbelt and gripped the back of the driver's seat as she quickly accelerated the car. "You shouldn't have left them on their own."

"He was - _there_!" Danielle leaned forward and pointed out the window. A parking garage loomed at the corner of the street about a block away from a tiny bookstore that was wedged in between a law firm and an investment bank. "Outside the garage."

Alex grabbed the door handle, ready to fling it open. "Did you see him leave in a car?"

"No," Catie replied. "He got off the bus."

The bus?

Then, Alex understood. Troy was operating just like he'd done at the Palace Theatre: he intended to cause chaos with some kind of catastrophe, then pick off his targets in the ensuing madness. And what better position for a sniper than the wall of a half-demolished parking garage?

Scouring the hotel was exactly what Troy wanted Blakemore's team to do. They would probably end up dead or worse.

Except the bomb hadn't gone off, and he would realize that sooner rather than later.

Alex tapped Catie on the shoulder. "Drop me here."

She slammed her foot on the brake and pulled over into a parking spot. Danielle unfastened her seatbelt and went to open the door, but Alex grabbed her wrist before she could.

"I'm coming with you," she snapped, shaking him off.

"I know," Alex said. "I figured as much. Besides, I can't leave you guys here in case he comes back. If he has a bomb he could have any number of other weapons that don't require his physical presence to harm you."

"You have a gun," Catie pointed out as she yanked the keys out of the ignition. "You can shoot him from a distance. He won't have to know it was you."

Double checking the safety on the pistol, Alex tucked it into his jacket pocket and shook his head. "Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. Come on."

"Where'd you get that?" Danielle asked once she ran around the front of the car to walk with him.

"Sebastian gave it to me."

The gun was a Beretta M9 pistol, standard issue for the United States military. Nothing fancy, but it would do the job if Alex had to use it, even though he hoped against hope that he wouldn't have to. Gunshots were messy and bullets scattered and became evidence in the event of a police investigation that would inevitably reveal Blakemore's involvement.

"Okay," Alex muttered "Let's go."

They walked towards the parking garage as casually as possible even though Alex felt the pressure of an invisible clock that told him he didn't have time to stop Troy from doing anymore damage. As they ducked under the bar across the street, Alex hung back and pulled Catie aside.

"Are you sure you want to come?" he asked her quietly.

She looked at him askance. Her eyes flashed in the darkness but she nodded. "It's not like I have a choice, Alex. If I stay with the kids, they're in danger. I don't really want to be alone either."

"I'm not talking about that - great, though, I understand - is your head okay?"

"Oh." She shrugged his question off with a casual tilt of her head. "It's fine."

"Liar."

A tiny smile tugged her lips upwards. "You should ask Danielle too."

Alex almost laughed despite his stress. "Nothing short of being locked in a concrete bunker in Siberia will stop her from doing something if she wants to."

"I guess she's like you then."

"Unfortunately for her."

"I can hear you," Danielle whispered from about four feet away. "Alex, you're an idiot. Come on."

"Up the staircase." Alex hurried ahead and peered up the flights of stairs. He paused for a moment, listening intently, but all he heard was rainwater dripping onto the metal railing. Silently, he took the stairs two at a time then whirled around the corner to the second flight with his hand on the gun in his pocket.

The stairs were empty.

He motioned behind his back for Catie and Danielle to follow him, which they did. They were perfectly capable of doing this without his help but Alex was determined that, if anyone was going to be shot, it would be him.

Fifteen minutes later they were on the top deck. The highest level was also the least populated; only seven cars were parked, and the rest of the deck provided little cover for anyone.

Alex paused on the top stair and crouched down to peer through the corded barrier. Nothing moved. The cars he could see appeared to be empty.

Danielle managed to get eye level with the concrete. "There aren't feet or legs behind the cars, so if he's up here he's standing behind the wheels or in one of the cars."

Carefully gripping the railing, Catie stared down the staircase. "Alex-"

"Ssh," he whispered. Something didn't feel right. His instincts were going haywire, warning him of impending disaster, but what? Why? He had gone straight up to the top deck because that would be the best vantage point for someone seeking to snipe off pedestrians.

Unless Troy had realized the bomb was compromised. . . he wouldn't be on the top deck, then, if he was in the garage at all. That position would be too exposed.

" _Alex,_ " Catie said, an insistent hitch in her voice. "There's someone down there."

Before Alex could check for himself, something hard struck the flight of stairs immediately beneath them. The object rolled a short distance onto the landing; it was oval, solid, and dark green.

" _Get onto the deck!"_ Alex bellowed, shoving Danielle up the stairs and yanking Catie to her feet. Danielle scrambled up the stairs and sprinted across the bare expanse of parking deck, then threw herself behind a blue Nissan for shelter. The grenade exploded seconds after Catie and Alex evacuated the stairs. Bits of flying concrete rained down on them. Catie stumbled a moment but quickly recovered.

"Where's Danielle?"

Alex's ears rang. " _Dani_!"

"I'm here!" she stepped out from behind the car. Her eyes flicked to and from the stairwell.

There was another staircase on the opposite side. It was the only way out; rubble from the other staircase completely blocked it off.

"He'll get us if we use that," Alex said. "Catie, is there another way out?"

"I'll check for an elevator." She jogged towards the back wall.

Alex leaned his head back and stared at the starless night, polluted by the lights from the garage. No constellations gleamed, the moon was gone. There was only him, his sister, Catie, and the night.

The streetlamps flickered off the windows of the office building next to the garage. It was built close enough that the sides touched even though the buildings were not adjacent to each other.

Alex had a flicker of inspiration and ran over to the demolished staircase, grabbed a chunk of concrete, and ran back.

Danielle arrived next to him just as he flung the misshapen chunk through one of the dark windows. Alarms started blaring but Alex ushered Danielle over to the corded wire strung up as an additional barrier above the walls surrounding the upper level. She pulled herself up, climbing the wire like it was a rope ladder, and tipped forwards into the next building.

"It's an office," she called back. Broken glass crunched under her feet.

Footsteps slapped against the concrete as Catie jogged back over to Alex. She immediately saw what was going on and scrambled into the office building. As soon as she was inside, Alex hauled himself up. His bruised shoulder complained with every movement but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep climbing. Something chipped away the concrete next to his left foot. He glanced down as he swung over the last row of wire and jumped backwards into the office.

It was a bullet.

Another one punched a hole in the opposite wall of the office. Danielle hid in the hallway; Catie hit the floor.

" _Alex Rider!_ "

The shout came from the garage and Troy stepped into the streetlight. He was wearing a heavy denim jacket, jeans, and had a backpack slung over his shoulder like a typical plumber or electrician. A gun, sizably larger than Alex's pistol, dangled loosely from his right hand.

Alex could hear his pulse thundering in his ears. He took the pistol out of his jacket and flipped the safety back with his thumb. _This is it._

He raised the gun, ready to shoot before Troy had a chance to say anything and get inside his head.

As he did, a single filament of a memory floated back to him from when Ben Daniels was showing Danielle how to handle his gun since she would be alone in the flat overnight.

" _Remember, Danielle, you're protecting yourself by all means necessary. So if you point this at anyone, you have to be willing to shoot them."_

Alex tried to shake off the memory. Of course he was ready to shoot Troy. He had to; the man had escaped from federal prison and he was coming for Alex and everyone Alex loved. There was only one way to stop him.

His finger tightened on the trigger and there was Julius, falling back with wide glassy eyes and a face that was like looking in a mirror. Alex's blood ran cold. He couldn't make himself pull the trigger but he couldn't tear himself away either.

"Who's with you?" Troy demanded, leering at Alex. "Your sister? Blakemore's brat? Which of them is gonna die first?" His pupils were dilated and a maniacal gleam danced in his eyes; he was drugged up on something, but Troy was just as dangerous sober.

A scuffing noise drew Alex's attention for a split second. He glanced down just long enough to see Catie carefully getting to her feet with her wary eyes trained on the window. The second Troy saw her he jerked his gun up and fired. Catie threw herself into the hallway at the bang, Danielle reached out to pull her out of the doorway. The noise jarred Alex back to life and his resolve hardened. Aiming the gun first at Troy's heart, he moved it two centimetres lower and pulled the trigger.

Troy stumbled backwards as a red stain bloomed across the front of his shirt. He pressed a hand to the wound then brought it up to his face. Blood dripped from his fingers.

The last thing Alex saw was Troy's face contorting into an unnatural mask of hatred and rage before he sprinted out the door.

"Use the stairs!" Alex shouted. "Get to the street and run!"

* * *

The night was frigid and the air crisp. Perhaps a storm was coming. Alex pulled the zipper on his jacket farther up and ran down the sidewalk, staying a few paces behind Catie and Danielle. They had to go around the parking garage back towards the Mayflower. Troy was incapable of shooting a weapon but he could do other kinds of damage if he hadn't bled out yet. The short alley between the garage and the left wing of the hotel provided enough cover for Alex, Danielle, and Catie to hide while Catie fished her phone from her pocket and called her father.

"He's not picking up," she murmured, brow furrowing in concern.

Danielle leaned against her wall with her arms wrapped around her stomach. "Try the police."

"No," Alex said quickly. "Blakemore and Wolf don't want the police to know about this. They'll have to report it."

"To who?"

"The FBI."

Catie was going to try her dad's number again. He had to pick up - he was okay, there was no way he was injured. There was no way he was dead. Tears pricked her eyes at the very thought. Her fingers shook from fear as she typed in his number instead of pulling up his contact information. Seconds after she hit dial, Alex shouted something that was lost in the clanking of another heavy object to the ground about ten feet away from her.

It was oval, heavy, dark green.

Then there was a flash of pure white light, and she felt like she was floating.

Catie tried to blink away the film over her eyes that made everything seem blurry and unfocused, but her eyes were broken cameras that showed fuzzy impressions and nothing more. The darkness was coming for her; she could see it, as the edges of her vision wavered and the smudge that might have been Alex Rider folded in on itself.

She was afraid.

She couldn't go back to the darkness, not again - she had just clawed her way out of it, out of the endless nightmare of sunset water and dead grass and formless voices, sound without source - Alex had helped her then, but this was a different kind of darkness.

She was vaguely aware of something that tingled like pins and needles and sharp, shooting pains and an ache that was growing to encompass her entire body. There was so much pain. And her eyelids were so heavy.

The darkness swallowed up more of her sight. She heard nothing except for the whistle of a far-off wind. She closed her eyes but tried to force herself to keep thinking or to focus on the pain, but the darkness rushed in and swallowed her mind. It was worse than any pain.

" _Catie-_ " Alex yelled and his voice was raw. He pushed himself up but his arms wouldn't work so he fell forward with his hands outstretched on the alley road, fingers clawing at the unyielding tar. His gun was missing, it had been flung away in the blast. He couldn't get to her. He couldn't _get_ -

Suddenly, a vicelike pressure covered his right arm and lifted him to his feet before twisting it behind his back so fast that he felt the muscles in his shoulder rip. He barely refrained from crying out at the white-hot agony in his dislocated shoulder. His mind spin, overwhelmed and over grieved. Catie couldn't be dead. Not for real, not this time - he had _tried_ , he had thought ahead and planned, and he thought they would all be safe. He hadn't been taken by surprise this time.

And she was still as stone on the side of the street.

Something cold and hard pressed against the side of his head: the barrel of a gun. Troy was breathing heavily. Blood still ran down his face from the gash Danielle's knife had given him. He looked like a madman, a creature from hell: all blood and dirt and death and hatred.

"Drop the gun right now," Troy ordered. "Or I shoot him, then you." His face was covered in blood and dirt, and the front of his shirt was soaked through with blood from where the bullet had bitten into his abdomen. How was he still alive?

 _He's waiting_ , Alex thought distantly, detached. _Waiting for me._

Alex dragged his head upright and looked ahead.

Danielle had obeyed him; she'd made it as far as a blue plastic dumpster, but now she stepped out from behind it with Alex's gun in her hands. She must have picked it up after he'd gone down. She moved the gun to her right hand and lifted it, pointing it at some spot over Alex's shoulder. Her face was a mask of grief and shock, horrified at what she was witnessing yet unable to believe it yet.

Alex hung his head. He had failed.

He heard a desperate sob force its way through her clenched teeth and he knew he had to try to help her due what she had to - what her _duty_ was.

"Danielle."

He saw her stare wide-eyed at him, her lips moving as if to speak even though no words left her mouth. He saw her face and arms that were scuffed with dirt and blood and dust from the explosion, the rips in her jeans, the trembling hand wrapped around the handle of his gun.

His heart beat frantically in his chest, he felt it battering his ribcage. There was the gun, of course, pressed to he side of his head, and Troy's arm twisting his past its natural flexibility behind his back.

Alex hurt. His old wounds, his shoulder, his arm - that _screamed_ -, his legs, his head.

And then his eyes were drawn to rest on Catie's body, which had crumpled broken and battered to the ground, and one of her arms was pinned beneath her back and her eyelids were closed and she was horribly still.

Danielle was crying where she stood; the tears pooled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks to make streaks in the grime that covered her face. Her hair hung over her shoulders limp and scraggly. Her hand trembled.

"Hey," Alex said. He knew his voice sounded terrible, hoarse and scratchy like a dead man talking because he _was_ a dead man. He just had to be sure she got out alive first. But him? He would most certainly die. "Dani. Look at me."

She did, and he saw that she _knew_ , and there was the silent scream in her watery blue eyes that begged him to have a plan for _something, anything_ , because shouldn't this just be one more close call that he escaped from? Alex met her gaze slowly, evenly, and his dry lips cracked as he made himself smile at her. _There's no way out this time. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

With her unsteady hand she would surely miss Troy if she tried to shoot him. If anything, she would probably hit Alex. He was fine with that, but he wouldn't make her do it. Ben, or Wolf, if they were in her position - they would understand. But Danielle didn't. She refused to accept the sacrifice that war and espionage demanded. Granted, her freezing up was the only reason they were both alive because even Troy, who was somehow still alive, couldn't shoot two people simultaneously, but she had only delayed him.

She cleared her throat. "Alex-"

"Hush. It's okay. . . I understand."

" _Drop_ the gun, brat." Troy snarled.

Alex tensed - he had almost forgotten Troy was standing there - and prepared himself to die. There was no way out this time; no Ben, no army. Not even Wolf.

Danielle started to lower her arm, some of the tension leaving her shoulders, but suddenly she flung her hands back up and out and shouted something that Alex couldn't hear because his ears were ringing. Something had hit his head and now he was falling down, down . . .

When his head cleared, he was running up the stairs to his flat in London. He knew that inside were Catie, Danielle, Tom, Ben, Wolf - and others, of course, but they were the ones waiting for him. They were all waiting - for what, he couldn't remember. . . of course, they wanted to hear about what had happened in Washington. Alex burst through the stairwell door and hurried to his flat, inserted the key in the lock and twisted it.

And he stepped into nothingness.

Danielle was barely aware of her knees hitting the tar when she fell forward and collapsed, her face buried in her hands. No tears came, the urge to scream died in her throat. Her mind, overwhelmed with shock, fear, and despair, flickered and went blank. She seemed to exist in a moment outside of time, and that was what the metropolitan police found when two cars screeched around the corner with sirens wailing: a single girl kneeling catatonic in the street with the bodies of three other people surrounding her.

* * *

 **Hope you guys enjoyed! Loved it? Hated it? Let me know :) (If you're confused, you should be. Next chapter coming soon :D)**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N:** Hello everyone! this is the **second to last chapter** :) There will be a third installment!

Thank you for reading and reviewing! You guys are the best 3

* * *

Morning came quickly to the waiting room at the George Washington University Hospital and brought a slew of patients with all manner of broken limbs, bruises, sprains, and other injuries. The noise in the hall drove Sebastian to the restaurant to find a booth and a pot of coffee. He placed his book, _Fire and Sword_ , on the table and took a sip of strong black coffee. A waitress offered to take his order; he declined. Eating hadn't even occurred to Sebastian yet. He was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened last night.

Everything had been going fine - well, even - when Alex, Catie, and Danielle had just . . . disappeared. The dismantling unit had found and disarmed the dirty bomb without disturbing any of the hotel's patrons or staff, and the public were none the wiser. Sebastian had thought that Troy should be nearby, watching his plan unfold. Alex had disagreed.

Then the doors to the holding room at the museum burst open and Catie Blakemore appeared, looking panicked, and she'd said something to Alex before shoving her siblings through the door and vanishing. A few seconds later, Alex was gone. Sebastian had driven the kids to their grandparents' house, as their mother was working an eighteen-hour shift at her hospital, at Blakemore's orders before returning to the museum.

Forty-five minutes later an explosion shook the Mayflower Hotel. The ancient building had groaned and trembled, dust falling from the ceilings as the structural integrity was compromised. Sirens began to wail as police cars fired up to go to the scene of the explosion. Other law enforcement was also on the way.

Sebastian had known that Alex was involved with that. Ben, Luke, and Blakemore were ready to leave when the back wall of the holding room imploded and they were all buried beneath plaster dust and brick.

The explosive wasn't strong enough to kill any of them; Ben and Luke were covered in scratches and bruises but were otherwise fine, and Sebastian himself escaped with a pained leg. Blakemore, however, had gotten the worst of the blast. He had been knocked over by a section of the wall and the blow had tore open the wound in his leg. He was currently in surgery.

As for Catie, Alex, and Danielle. . . Sebastian didn't know the extent of their injuries but he did know that they were in different units. Catie was in ICU, Alex in recovery, and Danielle was in trauma.

"Hey," someone said and Ben Daniels slid into the seat across from him.

Sebastian slid the pot of coffee across the table and Ben gratefully accepted, pouring himself a mug and draining it in a single gulp.

"You've been up all night." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Sebastian said.

Ben was already pouring a second cup of coffee. He looked like hell, pale and haggard and bruised. "Any updates?"

"I don't know. What have you heard?"

"Catie's in the worst shape out of all of them," Ben replied. "She probably has a second concussion and a broken arm, with severe tissue damage from shrapnel. Troy set off a grenade. She was closest to the blast range and most of the debris went her way, according to forensics. According to the surgeon she shouldn't be alive."

Sebastian silently took the new information in and filed it away with the rest of the operation.

"Alex," Ben continued, "Is, for once, doing fine. Comparatively, at least. I think he's still asleep. Dislocated shoulder, nasty lump on his head, assorted nonfatal cuts and bruises. Any idea how he hit his head?"

"No, but that's odd. Maybe he fell when the grenade went off."

"Perhaps." Ben didn't look convinced but he shrugged and took another sip of coffee.

"Better than the last time, at least," Sebastian offered.

"Yeah. And Danielle . . . last I heard, she was drugged to sleep in trauma. When the police recovered her she was in shock and completely unresponsive." Worry caused Ben's forehead to crease. "I'm going to make her see a psychiatrist at some point. She needs to talk to someone. If she keeps all this in her head it's going to eat her alive."

Sebastian cleared his throat and reached out to take back the coffee pot. "What about Catie?"

"Oh, she should see someone too. But that's up to her father to decide. She seems more. . . not resilient, but she's in a different situation. She takes care of her family."

"Yeah," Sebastian said quietly. "Blakemore's divorce was rough. It happened a few months after the incident with Agnes, and Catie's been stretching herself to the limit to keep her family together. She's a good kid - he's proud of her."

"Understandably. Any word on the surgery?"

"Not yet."

Ben fell silent for a few moments, brooding over his coffee. His hand was clenched around the handle but the rest of his posture seemed relaxed enough. "You know," he said quietly. "They really should be dead."

"Yeah," Sebastian said. The same thought had occurred to him. "I don't know what exactly happened in that alley, but a grenade at such close range should have killed somebody."

"Maybe it was a dud."

". . . right."

* * *

The incessant beeping was what finally woke Alex when his mind drifted from the soporific brambles of stress-induced sleep to a shallower reverie. He pried his eyes open enough to be aware of the blinding light in the room and winced, closing them and trying to fall back asleep.

But the beeping continued.

Finally, Alex tried to roll over and found that he couldn't move his right arm. That woke him up and he blinked in the bright fluorescent lighting at the sling on his arm. His shoulder didn't hurt but it felt a little stiff; hs head, however, throbbed with an acute, splitting pain that radiated from his forehead into the rest of his skull as if he'd been whacked in the face with a steel hammer.

The annoying noise was coming from the pulse monitor that processed data from the device clamped to his left index finger. Alex managed to fling it off, causing the monitor to flatline, which he regretted because that meant someone would be coming in.

He stared blearily at the red-haired nurse who came in panicked and shook her head at him with a disappointed sigh.

"Really," she muttered, reaching over to shut the monitor off. "Do you want water?"

"Sure," Alex rasped. His throat was dry from lack of use. How much time had passed?

Little could be recalled from the alley; everything had seemed like a blur while it was happening, and sleeping for however long hadn't changed that. Danielle. . . pulled the trigger? Threw something? And then there was nothing. But before that, there had been a grenade - right, that's what the blast was that dazed him! - and somehow Troy had still been alive by the time the dust settled and Alex tried to stand. Why had he tried that? His body had begun to inform him that standing had been a horrible idea, if the pain in his arm and shoulder was anything to go by, but he was trying to help. . . Catie. Because she looked like she was dead.

The nurse returned with an unopened bottle of water and placed it on the table next to Alex's bed. He struggled to sit up further as she brought over a strip of gauze and what looked like an ice pack.

"This is gonna go on your head, and unlike your heart rate monitor, it is _not_ coming off," she said sternly. "Do you want tylenol?"

"Please." Alex held still as she strapped the cold pack to his head. It did provide some relief.

"You're lucky your skull isn't fractured, but it's pretty close. What happened to you?"

"I have no idea."

She gave him a bland, disbelieving look, and Alex lifted up his hands - well, his good hand - in surrender. "I swear, I have no clue. There was an explosion. That's all I remember." Almost all. "Did anyone else come in? Danielle Rider? Cati - Catherine - Blakemore?"

"The explosion? You were in that thing on the news?"

". . . probably?"

Her eyes widened with a flicker of surprise that she quickly hid. "I can't. . . disclose information about other patients."

"Surely you could at least - "

"No, sorry." The nurse cut him off abruptly. "Press the button if you need anything else. The doctor will be here to talk to you soon."

Before Alex could say anything else, she was gone. She seemed vaguely familiar but he couldn't figure out who she reminded him of.

He knew that he should be worried about something but he couldn't summon the mental energy to remember what it was, so he let his eyes close and his mind sank back into unconsciousness.

* * *

"So, I'm in charge of vetting Blakemore's emails while he's out, right?" Sebastian said as he placed a sleek black laptop on the booth and turned it so that Ben could see the screen. "Are you aware that we now have about fourteen new enemies?"

"Can't imagine why," Ben muttered, engaged in a violent battle of the will to _not_ indulge in a fourth cup of coffee, no matter how tempting it was. All he could do was wait and hope that he didn't fall asleep before anything important happened. He wanted to see how Danielle was holding up, but she was apparently still sleeping. Waking her wouldn't be a good idea; she needed the rest and her brain needed a break.

"Since Troy died - bled out, by the looks of things - he can't repay his gambling debts. There are some _very_ rich eastern Europeans who are looking for the next person who can."

"And they emailed Blakemore?"

"No, the Director's CI's got word and reported accordingly."

"Lovely."

"There are also the Arabs who want to avenge the man he murdered."

Ben blinked. He had almost forgotten about that, about the crime that started the avalanche of events that led to him sitting in yet another hospital waiting for someone who may or may not survive the next twelve hours. Somehow, most operations ended here. Especially ones involving Alex Rider.

 _He doesn't have a death wish,_ he reflected, retreating back into his thoughts. _He just. . . throws himself into everything. Headfirst. Without thinking. Because he sees something and reacts to it._

Lately, though, most of Alex's actions had been more. . . tempered. Maybe because he wasn't just thinking about throwing himself in danger anymore. There were people now that forced him to stop and think. If he was thinking, at least.

" _Hello_?" Sebastian said insistently.

Ben blinked again. "Sorry. Spaced out. Was that why the Arab died?"

"Yes, Troy shot him to delay some gambling debts."

"That's horrible."

"Any word from Blakemore?

Shaking his head, Ben pulled out his phone. There was nothing related to the hospital but several pictures from Gwen of their month-old son. He couldn't help but smile even through the dozen layers of exhaustion and stress that this operation had given him. "Nothing."

Sebastian nodded as if he'd expected as much. "I bet you're looking forward to changing jobs when you get back."

"I'm looking forward to spending time with my family."

* * *

Danielle had spent most of her day sitting crosslegged on her bed and staring out the window while the previous night's events replayed themselves in her head over and over with unsettling acuteness. She saw Alex's eyes roll back in his head as he collapsed, felt the fear close over her lungs like a vice of molten lead, and watched Catie get flung into a brick wall as if she was a piece of straw in a tornado. Throughout the barrage of flashbacks, Danielle knew that she should be feeling something _more_ , but the only emotions she could be stirred to were the fear of the moment and a vast, hollow numbness. She felt like she was observing her surroundings from outside herself. Like what had happened in the alley was the breaking point and something inside her snapped and fled.

When the numbness wore off, the tears came. Hot and scalding, pouring down her face as she buried her head in her hands and counted the minutes until someone, anyone, came to talk to her. She needed to know if Alex and Catie were alive. Hell, she needed to know if _she_ was really alive after all that. She certainly felt as if she should be dead, all numb and hollow and empty except for the pain that lanced through her chest like a hot-bladed knife.

Every now and again a doctor would come in with a few simple questions, take her blood pressure, and check the fluid in her IV. Danielle would nod and speak when necessary but her chest thrummed with emptiness every time she forced a polite smile onto her face. Smiling felt unnatural - it felt _wrong_.

The room itself was unremarkable and didn't lend itself to any distracting thoughts. The walls were off-white, ivory, and the molding was grey. Blue-grey tiles led to the doorway. Overhead, the sterile, fluorescent lights gave a strange sheen to the blinds in the window, like gloss. A painting of a lake hung on the wall opposite the bed, and was the only art on the wall.

After a few more hours, fragments of what the doctor had been saying fell together inside her head: low blood pressure, dizziness, a hydration drip. At some point she had either passed out or fallen asleep. The last thing she remembered was seeing flashing blue lights and Troy's black silhouette fold in on itself and crumple to the ground.

And Alex was there, lying on the street.

Catie had looked dead.

Danielle finally reached for the water bottle on the side table, her arm stiff from lack of movement, and twisted the top off after several failed attempts. The cold water jarred some life back into her and cleared some of the fog from her mind, then she blinked a few times and fell back against the pillow as her legs twinged with cramps. Right as she was in the process of trying to stand up without yanking the IV out of her arm, the door swung open. A woman with curly red hair stormed into the room with two clipboards. Her blue scrubs were wrinkled in odd places and tendrils of hair escaped her ponytail. She turned an intense gaze on Danielle, green eyes flashing with determination, and Danielle instinctively leaned back. Even the thought of stress made her stomach ache as if she was made of glass and one loud word or raised voice would make her cave in. The nurse seemed familiar, it was something about her manner.

"Where's the doctor?" Danielle quickly asked, keeping her voice soft. She wanted to be the first one to speak, maybe she could derail whatever the nurse was going to say.

"Seeing another patient," the nurse replied, brusque. "Four - no, _five_ \- people came in last night from the downtown district near Dupont. On top of the normal traffic on a Saturday night, which is usually an astounding and depressing amount of people in their twenties with alcohol poisoning."

Danielle couldn't tell if the downtown district was the area she had been in or not, but she certainly wasn't asking. Usually Ben would have come for her by now, he would have told her what, if anything, she was allowed to say. A horrible thought occurred to her: could Ben be _dead_?

The nurse flipped back a few papers on one of the clipboards. "Your brother's here?"

"Alex Rider?"

"Yes."

"That's my brother. Is he - is . . ." the words died in Danielle's throat. She didn't want to ask, didn't want to know. . . but at the same time, she _needed_ to know, if only to brace herself for the worst case scenario. Finally, she settled on, "Is he okay?"

"He's fine. Actually, he was discharged an hour ago."

Danielle glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly seven p.m. "Really? So, is-"

"Unfortunately, I can't disclose information about other patients, but you should be ready to go in an hour or two. I thought you should be kept here another night for observation, but someone's pulling for you."

"What happened, exactly?"

"Well," the nurse began as she started taking Danielle's blood pressure and checked the volume of her IV fluid, recording both measurements on the second clipboard. "As far as anyone knows, you endured a kind of psychogenic shock. It's triggered by extreme fear, grief, anger, or even joy. Your blood vessels contract so your blood pressure drops, and your pulse races as you get dizzy. You could pass out, or go pale. Usually the best medicine is rest and hydration."

Danielle managed to only _slightly_ flinch when the nurse took out her IV and tore the tape off her arm. "Shock?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Alright, we'll keep you here for another hour and then you'll be discharged." The nurse smiled and Danielle felt another shock of familiarity but she couldn't figure out why. "Do you have a ride? You shouldn't drive for a few more days."

Danielle nodded. "I think so."

A few minutes later, someone knocked on the closed door. Danielle perked up, hoping it was someone she knew, and called for the person to enter.

It was Ben.

"Oh, thank _God_ ," she breathed, sighing heavily. "I was starting to wonder if you were dead."

"Don't worry about me," Ben replied with a grim smile. "Even if I had died, I'm pretty sure my wife would bring me back just to properly murder me for breaking my promise."

"Is this the 'don't-do-anything-reckless' promise?"

"With you and Alex around, she knows that's a lost cause. This was actually the 'don't-get-killed' one."

"Ah."

Ben sat down at the foot of her bed, making it jostle. He looked tired - these days, he always did - and had a few scrapes and bruises on his forearms and face. The collar of his red t-shirt had several holes in it, and his jeans were scuffed up.

"What happened to you?" Danielle asked, concerned.

"The wall of the museum exploded on us." He glanced down at a particularly nasty scrape on his left arm that was beginning to bleed again. "Could have been worse. The force of the debris tore open the bullet wound on Mr. Blakemore's leg and Wolf's left foot is fractured. They both got discharged earlier this afternoon, and Alex-"

"Got discharged an hour ago. The nurse told me."

"Ah. Did you recognize her?"

"No. . ." Danielle frowned down at her hands, trying to concentrate, but her thoughts constantly flitted away before she could pin one down. "Should I have?"

The beginnings of a smile appeared on Ben's face as he shook his head. "No. that's Mr. Blakemore's ex-wife."

" _Oh_. Okay. Wow."

"Yeah, hell of a coincidence." he raised his eyebrows with a rueful smile. "Sebastian told me. I'm not sure she knows that her husband was here or not."

"Hey, Ben?" Another horrible thought hit Danielle, and this one refused to go away. There was one person he hadn't mentioned yet, one person who apparently hadn't been discharged besides her. . . "Where's Catie?"

The look on Ben's face made her stomach twist. It was concern, sorrow, sad. "Catie . . . isn't doing well. She's in ICU. Since she was closest to the blast range of the grenade, she got the worst of it. Probably has another concussion, and definitely has several fractures from being flung into the wall and tissue damage from shrapnel. Maybe internal bleeding."

"She looked like a paper person," Danielle muttered, looking away from him again as tears stung her eyes. "Crumpled and dead."

"I'm sorry, Dani."

She nodded. A lump wedged itself into her throat and refused to budge, and she blinked hard to keep herself from crying. "Is she - will - do the doctors think she'll be okay?"

Ben let out a slow, heavy sigh. "They're cautiously hopeful but she's still in surgery."

"How's Alex taking it?"

"About as well as you could expect."

"Right."

* * *

 **Three Days Later**

The glass of water was coated in condensation and almost slipped out of Alex's hand as he snatched it off the counter and drained the contents in a single gulp. Despite the November chill, sweat poured down his face from exertion. Running thirteen miles in an afternoon probably wasn't the best idea but he'd bandaged the sling on his arm to keep it stable and to prevent his shoulder from jostling too much. He had nothing better to do, after all; Catie still wasn't allowed visitors, and Danielle had locked herself in the sunroom with the piano for most of the last three days, and the Blakemore kids were staying with extended family for the rest of the week. Mr. Blakemore was recovering from his second surgery and spent most of his time at the office. According to Ben, there were a lot of loose ends and paperwork that needed to be tied up after Troy's death, but Alex suspected that Blakemore was more concerned with Catie than with paperwork.

"Alex!" Ben called to him from the Blakemore's family room.

Alex shoved his glass under the tap and refilled it before going to see him. "Yeah?"

"I just got a call from Mr. Blakemore. Catie's in recovery now, she came through the surgeries okay."

An invisible weight seemed to have been lifted off his chest as Alex let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "That's _great_. When is she coming home?"

"Probably a week. Maybe five days. Here, come look at the debriefing file. Anything you want to add?" Ben slid a stack of papers across the coffee table.

Alex sat on the carpet and grabbed the file to examine it. There was nothing he didn't already know, except for a few more details about the bombing at the museum, and he made sure to underline the passage about Troy's death. He had been keeping himself busy with strenuous exercise and reading that lit paper he promised he'd proofread for Catie so that he wouldn't fall into a black pit of recollection and despair. If Catie hadn't told him about seeing Troy, all the first responders and agents to the hotel would have gotten picked off by Troy's sniping. She had done the right thing, and look where that got her.

 _She's lucky she's not dead_ , Alex thought to himself, the file blurring in front of his eyes, and blinked hard.

He cleared his throat. "So Troy died of blood loss due to a sustained gunshot injury? Is that what you're saying here?" Pointing to a line of text, he showed it to Ben.

"Yeah," Ben replied. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

Ben got to his feet and stretched, shaking his arms out. "I'm going to make coffee. Want any?"

"Sure. Thanks."

"Anytime." He was humming a Mozart piano sonata under his breath as he strode to the kitchen. The piece had a bouncing, happy second theme that Danielle had been practicing for the last few days. Her rendition sounded rather depressed. Actually, she had been playing it in a minor key, like it was an elegy. Shaking his head, Alex stared at the grainy surface of the coffee table until it blurred and unfocused. For once, Danielle seemed to be taking a disaster harder than he was. She seemed to want to be left alone. Locking herself in a room with a piano certainly wasn't unusual for her, but Alex's intuition told him that she wasn't practicing just to prepare for benchmark assessments. Sometimes a new piece was a shield as much as a challenge. He, of all people, should know that.

Ben returned with two mugs of black coffee. Alex accepted his and drank too much of the scalding liquid at once. He coughed, eyes watering from the heat, but kept drinking.

"Take it easy," Ben muttered. "It's hot."

"You don't say."

Before Ben could reply, probably to tell Alex to be quiet, the muffled sound of footsteps came from the front deck as two people climbed the stairs. Seconds later, the doorbell rang.

"Who could that be?" Alex muttered as he started to stand up, but Ben beat him to it and opened the door just enough to see who was standing there.

"Edward Tillerson," a deep voice stated. "This is my partner, More. Is Alex Rider here?"

"Can I see some ID?" Ben replied.

There was a pause. The shuffling of fabric.

Alex was already on his feet and approaching the door before Ben turned back and nodded to him. Shouldering his way onto the front porch, Alex scrutinized the two men standing there. The man on the left was tall and reedy, wearing a dark blue suit jacket that was too broad in the shoulders, navy trousers, and a black tie. His hair was blonde and combed away from his forehead. He had sharp blue eyes, like glacier ice, and angular features. The man to his right was shorter, maybe five-and-a-half feet, and stocky. His black hair was shaved close to the scalp and his eyes were dark brown, nearly black. He wore all black; jacket, pants, tie. Only his shirt was a different color, and it was white. He seemed to be dressed for a funeral.

The only thing Alex was certain of was that neither of these men worked for the American government. He hoped Ben had also figured that out.

"What do you need?" he asked calmly, and straightened his shoulders even though he was freezing in a t-shirt, track pants, and bare feet. "The debriefing isn't scheduled until next week."

"Alex Rider," the tall man said. His voice was the same one that had spoken at the door, so he had to be Edward Tillerson. "You are under arrest."

* * *

The trills and elongated triplets fluttered through the air like bird's wings or a cloud of butterflies on a summer afternoon, trickling up and down like water in a brook that babbled and sang as it flowed into the sea.

With each run through of _L'Isle Joyeaux_ , the six-minute duration melted away. The last two minutes sounded like music for a grand ball straight out of the eighteenth century, as if the interplay between the chords and trills was written for a minuet.

Finally, Danielle stopped. The last few notes faded away and left an empty, stifling silence behind. She slumped forward on the bench with her head in her hands. The music was her only barrier between her driven focus and the memories that lurked in her mind, waiting for her to stop focusing on something so they could envelop her again. Her fingers were sore from practicing for longer than she had in a few weeks. But the music had lifted her spirits, if only for a few hours, and she had the delightful thrum in her diaphragm as if she was a tuning fork and the music poured out of her. It was a feeling of being completely one with the instrument, where there was no end to her hand and no beginning to the keys. There was only music and motion, and that was enough.

Now the music was gone. Danielle was alone with her thoughts, and that was a terrifying prospect. She closed her eyes. Fear gripped her chest, the fear of the moment, the fear of watching Troy die. Fate was the only reason she was still alive. Troy would have killed her, easily, had he not collapsed of blood loss. Danielle was hoping that would happen. She had hoped against hope that he would succumb to the bullet wound and die, but she didn't think he actually would.

But he had, and he had died in front of her.

Alex hadn't killed Troy. He hadn't aimed to actually kill.

Danielle understood why - well, she didn't have all the details, but Alex had tortured himself for long enough over the other things he had done - but had _she_ killed Troy by letting him die?

 _Of course not_ , she told herself. _He was going to kill Alex, then me. Happily. He died of his wounds. He wouldn't have let me help him if I'd tried._

She had never seen anyone die before, but now. . . now she was beginning to understand what had haunted Alex for five years. To watch someone die, to see them be alive one moment and dead the next, to see something like life or soul flee their body. . . it was terrifying, it was _wrong_. It should not be that way.

Pushing herself up, Danielle searched through the sheaf of sheet music on the piano and dug out _Liebstraum No. 3_. Liszt was always a comfort when she had too many half-formed thoughts tangled inside her mind, when she didn't want any of them to fully form yet.

 _Liebstraum No. 3_ had been part of the repertoire that she had recorded for her audition to the royal conservatory. It was familiar, like a friend. She could play it in a room as black as night and count every note as it passed beneath her fingers.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Alex wasn't expecting _that_ at two in the afternoon on a Saturday three days after getting out of the hospital and after seeing the death of his enemy, but he raised his eyebrows at Tillerson. "On what charges?"

"Breaching the terms of your travel visa," Moore replied in a smooth, even tone. "And engaging in operations of espionage on behalf of the British government."

After all that had happened, Alex almost wanted to laugh. On behalf of the British government? Hardly. "What agency do you work for?"

"The CIA."

"Right. Ben, call Blakemore." Alex stared at the two men. He was willing to guarantee his own violin that neither of these men were really CIA. They didn't have the dress, they didn't have the posture. All they had was fancy jargon that sounded official.

"I think I will." Ben stepped back inside the Blakemore's house and shut the door.

 _Okay_ , Alex thought. _He knows too._

"Who are you, really?" he asked, addressing Moore. "I know you don't work for the government."

Tillerson gave him a grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile but looked instead as if he had bitten a lemon. "Our employer understands that you are responsible for the death of one Galen Troy."

"Not exactly, but-"

"Mr. Troy owed _significant_ debts to our employer. Now, with his death, there is no way to acquire his assets."

Alex had a sinking feeling in his gut that he wouldn't like where this conversation was going. Dead men don't pay debts.

"Did his debts die with him?" he asked.

Moore sneered. "With the amounts he owed? Not likely."

"How much, exactly?"

"Upwards of thirty."

"Thousand?"

" _Million._ "

Alex took a step back, unconsciously favoring his injured shoulder. _Thirty million dollars? That's insane. That's impossible._ He had known about Troy's gambling debts, of course, but had never imagined such an outrageous amount.

"You have six weeks," Tillerson said. "Best of luck. Someone will check on you. If you fail. . . rest assured, there will be an _incentive_ to succeed."

Moore nodded. "You have a pretty sister."

Feeling his heart begin to thrum against his ribcage, Alex gave Moore as hateful a glare as he could manage. "Did you send those pictures to the FBI last month?"

"Of course. As a warning to you of what - or _who_ \- is at stake because of your. . . antics." Tillerson grimaced again. "But you didn't pay attention, and you _insisted_ on meddling with Mr. Troy once we used some very expensive assets to break him out of prison."

"Who do you work for?" Alex growled.

"Our employer is a wealthy man. Money is his business, Alex. We'll see you in Nevada." "Good luck," Moore offered as he brushed past Alex and left the porch. "You'll need it. The house always wins."

Alex silently watched them get into a black sedan and drive down the street. He kept watching even when the car turned a corner and disappeared, and his pulse roared in his ears.

 _Nevada. The house always wins._ He spun on his heel and marched back into the house. " _Ben!_ What do you know about Las Vegas?"

* * *

 **Please review! :)**

 _ **Review**_ **Replies**

Ava Simbelmyne - aah thank you so much! Hope you liked it :)

Andipxndy - I'm so glad you like it! I hope this one was satisfactory ;) and yes, who knows what the world has in store for Catie and Alex?


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:** Last chapter! Wow, thank you so much for reading this, and special thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed! You guys are awesome! There will be a third and final installment to the Agitato trilogy and I hope to begin posting it by the end of my summer break. I'll put something on here to let y'all know, or you can follow me for the notification. Also, it's July, which means it's time for Spyfest, so please check that out and consdier writing for it! I will be, it's a lot of fun.

As for now, this is the final chapter of Furioso, so please tell me what you think of it or the story!

Thanks again, everyone!

~Nienna

* * *

"Okay, Alex." Ben's hands were clasped behind his head. He took a deep breath, as if calming himself, then leveled a steady stare at Alex. "Forget about the money for a moment. I called Blakemore. He said the FBI hasn't gotten a hit on those aliases for two years, but they're known to the Bureau because they belong to two hitmen for a wealthy casino owner in Vegas, who's been long-suspected of using his casino to funnel illicit trade through."

"Can I have one week, _one week_ , where nothing like this happens?" Alex snapped, gesturing wildly back at the door. "Just when I thought I was _done_ -"

Ben held up his hand. "Honestly, as soon as I heard about the gambling, I was wondering. . . I should have said something, done some digging on who Troy owed money to."

"No, no one saw this coming. Where on the _planet_ am I supposed to find thirty million dollars in six weeks?" Sitting on the edge of the couch, Alex leaned forward with his arms braced against his knees. That amount of money was almost inconceivable, let alone attainable.

On the table, Ben's phone buzzed. He snatched it up. "Hello?" At the person's reply, he pivoted and strode into the kitchen, apparently listening to something. While Ben was distracted Alex jumped to his feet. He hurried to the sunroom, knocked once, then slipped inside.

Danielle's foot listlessly slid off the _sostenuto_ pedal, cutting off a reverberating chord, and she took her hands off the keys, allowing them to rest against her legs as she turned to look at him. Her hair hung down her back in the same braid from yesterday, messy and bedraggled because she'd slept with it in. Dark circles under her eyes made the rest of her face pale in comparison. She was still wearing her pj pants, pink and white plaid, and a grey t-shirt from the royal conservatory.

"That's the fakest smile I've ever seen," Alex said.

Danielle raised her eyebrows, one of her expressions that would normally be accompanied by an eye-roll or a grin, but her face was listless. "Sorry." Her voice sounded hollow.

"Hey, come on. Want coffee? Tea?" she didn't respond, and Alex felt a burst of concern. "Ok, tea. You look awful, talk to me."

Silently, Danielle stood and followed him back out into the kitchen. Ben had disappeared; he was probably still on the phone. Alex refilled the electric kettle, turned it on, and retrieved a box of black tea from the cabinet with the coffee making supplies. The tea was hidden behind a coffee press, several bags of ground coffee, and a plastic bag of coffee beans that seemed to have been bought in bulk.

" _Do you have_ any _tea?" Alex addressed his question to the coffee cabinet after he finished searching through it._

 _Behind him, Catie laughed. "There should be a box in there somewhere."_

" _Who buys tea from the box?"_

" _People who drink coffee."_

While the water heated, Alex turned back to Danielle, who was sitting at the table with her arms wrapped around herself. "How're you doing?"

She shrugged defeatedly. "Fine, I guess."

"Look, Dani, I know that's a lie - but you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to. I understand."

"No, I _do_ \- just -" Something in her voice faltered and as it died out, and when she bit her lower lip it was trembling. "It's like everything's piled up in my head, and I can't get any of it _out_. Into words. And I'm still afraid."

Alex quickly set a tea bag brewing so he could sit down next to her. "Yeah. You never should have seen any of this. I'm _so_ sorry. I'm sorry, I should've checked on you sooner. It's not good to get trapped in your head like that."

"Alex. _I_ should be apologizing to _you_. I hit you in the head with a pistol because I can't aim. I - I froze, and _I thought you had died_." She wrapped her hands around her mug, shoulders hunching inwards. "And Troy died."

"It's not your fault, Danielle. Honestly. I'm not just saying that, either." Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, Alex continued, "Shock does that to a person."

She sniffed. "You know, in the last few months I've been to the hospital five, six times. Visiting, sick. And the fire, the theatre . . . that, that was just panic. I wasn't processing anything. And now I've seen someone die - I'm sorry. . . I know, I'm not making any sense."

"It's fine," he immediately replied, looking at her downcast eyes. "You know, Ben has a guy - military psychiatrist - who he sees. He could refer you or something."

Danielle gave him an inquisitive look, her brow furrowed. "Military psychiatrist?"

"I think there's different kinds of trauma." _Actually, I'm almost positive._ "Like, the stuff in the theatre and the alley? That's kind of like what soldiers go through. In a different context, obviously." He shrugged. "I met with him two, maybe three times."

"And did it help?"

"It. . ." Alex paused, searching for the right words to describe what he noticed of the effects of his therapy, as they were something he had been starting to consider. "I guess it helped to talk to someone who wasn't personally involved in everything. You - I'm not ordering you or whatever, but maybe it's something you should consider."

The chair creaked underneath her as she crossed her legs and leaned against his arm, letting her head fall onto his shoulder. "I will, Alex. I've - I've actually been considering it lately."

"Talk to Ben," he replied. "And let me know what I can do. I'll do whatever I can to help."

Danielle nodded slowly, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Thanks."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments during which Alex knew with a certain clarity and serenity that everything, even the thirty million dollars, would be alright. Even if 'alright' was eventually. There were several possible approaches and answers to the problem; Blakemore was understandably preoccupied with Catie and the other kids, Ben was on the phone, and Wolf was. . . somewhere, probably sleeping. Nothing could be done immediately so there was no point worrying, and maybe that was just the concussion and pain medication talking, but Alex wanted to enjoy the absence of anxiety while he could. He almost, _almost_ , felt relaxed.

"I know you didn't want to kill him," Danielle whispered after a little bit longer. Her eyes hesitantly flicked up at his face and she bit down on her lip, her trademark nervous tell. "That's why you didn't. You could have, but you didn't."

Alex coughed, clearing his throat. "Yeah." He tightened his arm around her shoulder. "This time was different. You and Catie were there, and. . . maybe I was hoping he would survive. Recover in a hospital in a federal prison under heavy guard. I hated Troy, but. . .well, yeah."

"You didn't want him dead."

"Not unless he was dead-set on harming one of you. I'm trying to get out of this world, and I didn't want the last thing I did as an MI6 agent to be killing someone." He stared up at the window; seated, all he could see were the roofs of the houses across the street and the steel-grey sky that was threatening snow.

Danielle gave him a watery smile. "You really are getting better. But. . . that wasn't all running through your head, was it?"

"Oh, definitely not." Alex shook his head, grinning wryly. "I was scared and about to panic, but the only thought in my head was _I can't kill anyone_."

"I suppose no one could blame you for that."  
"Hopefully not." Letting her go, he got to his feet and nudged his chair back under the table. "Well, I have coffee to finish and you should consider taking a shower at some point."

"Yeah." Danielle stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes once more before standing. "It's been, like, two days. Kinda nice not to have such a rigid schedule."

Alex couldn't resist taking a slight jab at her even though he knew it would bring an avalanche of retaliation at some point in the near future. "Is that what we're calling _looking nice because Tom might be coming over_ these days?"

" _Alex!_ You're - you - _the worst_ -" She was unable to repress a smile even as she floundered for a retort and tried to glare at him with some amount of righteous indignation.

He gave her a quick, one-armed hug while he swiped a sheaf of papers loosely corralled with a giant paper clip off the table on his way to reclaim his coffee mug."I know, I absolutely am."

"Like you're one to talk, anyways!" she called after him, before her footsteps receded up the stairs.

Alex laughed as he sat back on the couch with his coffee in one hand the paper, which was Catie's literature paper, in the other. He wanted to read over it one more time before finalizing his corrections, partly because he had nothing better to do and partly because Catie had asked him to as a favor, and after what happened in the alley and on the garage it was the least he could do.

After a few moments the front porch clattered with three pairs of light, muffled footsteps and the door burst open as the younger Blakemore children stormed in. The twins said hi to Alex before continuing what was apparently a passionate argument about something and Agnes ran over to him and jumped on the couch to hug him. Alex's shoulder twinged from the unexpected pressure but he managed to pat her on the back without doing any significant damage to his arm.

"Agnes! I thought you guys wouldn't be back for a few more days."

"Dad picked us up early!" she replied with a wide, happy smile and bounced back to her feet. "He's coming soon."

Just then, Mr. Blakemore entered. He seemed calm enough and was certainly dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, but the smile he gave Alex did carry an undercurrent of tension; whether it was from the new problem or from Catie's condition, he couldn't tell.

"How's Catie doing?" Alex asked, concerned.

"Oh, she pulled through," Blakemore replied with no small amount of relief in his voice. "She always was a fighter. You know, when she was a toddler, she was _impossible_ to coerce into doing anything she didn't want to. Same deal now. It might take a week or three, but she'll bounce back."

Alex didn't have any trouble believing that even if he had been worried sick for the last three days. "I'm sure she will."

"Visiting hours are from nine to five. I'm sure she's looking forward to seeing you and Danielle. Now, Agnes," Mr. Blakemore held out his hand to her. "We have to go grocery shopping."

Agnes hurried over to him and stood on her toes to grab a heavier jacket off the coat rack while Mr. Blakemore gave Alex a long, significant look. Alex met his gaze evenly but didn't know what it meant.

Then, as soon as they had arrived, they were gone again. The twin's voices, continuing their argument, echoed all the way down the stairs with varying degrees of vehemence.

"Well," Alex muttered to himself. "The quiet was nice while it lasted."

* * *

"Fox told me about the two cons who came by," Wolf said, glancing up from where he sat on the carpet with one of Blakemore's books about the planes of World War II. "And the money."

Alex, still on the couch, sighed. "I was hoping to avoid talking about that."

"No such luck, Cub. That's a lot of money. Any ideas?"

"Can I direct you to Agent Blakemore for further inquiries?"

"Fine. Avoid it for today. But that money isn't going to fall out of the sky." Wolf turned a page in the book. His hair was growing out a bit, not quite a buzz cut anymore, and it took the edge off his appearance. He didn't look as much like a hardlined soldier anymore. "Does Danielle know?"

Alex kicked his feet off the couch to make himself stand up, almost losing his balance in the process because he wasn't used to having an arm in a sling. "Not yet. She's having some trouble with other things."

"I see."

As if on cue, Danielle stumbled into the doorway, still in her PJs, with drying hair and the disoriented look of someone who had been sleeping. "Is there food, Alex? Oh, hi Luke."

Wolf's eyebrows went up, as if he was actually concerned. "You don't need food, kid, you need sleep."

"And I can't sleep until I eat," she replied.

"Did you just take a nap?"

She lifted her hands in exasperation and let out a sigh, rolling her eyes. "Look, I'm actually exhausted this time. And starving. _Promise_."

"Check the fridge," Alex suggested as Ben stepped in the front door. He'd been on the phone for several hours.

Ben gave Wolf a cursory nod in greeting then ushered Danielle into the kitchen before she could reply to Alex. He said something to her in a low, quiet voice that Alex couldn't make out, so he sat back down and turned to Wolf.

"Wolf. How bad is Catie, really?"

Wolf snapped the book shut and set it aside. "Her dad's optimistic but that's mostly for his kids' sake. Cub, she's not great. She'll be able to come home, but from what I understand she's weak and lost a lot of blood. Lots of bandages, one of her arm's smashed to bits."

"Ah."

* * *

The hospital was quiet at nine in the morning on a Thursday except for patients checking in for pre-operation procedures and the medical staff on shift. Gone was the constant footsteps and murmuring voices that Alex remembered from his brief stay.

"It's much quieter," Danielle whispered, echoing his thoughts.

He nodded in agreement as they slowly walked down the first hallway on the second floor, which had wide glass windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling. The corridor marked the division between two wings of the hospital; it led to the recovery ward, where Catie was.

"What did Ben talk to you about last night?" Alex asked.

Danielle stopped walking, not meeting his eyes. "He's going home for a week but he told me to stay with you because it would be safer. He told me about the money."

He grimaced, then shook his head. "Let me handle that, okay?"

"Do you know what you're going to do?"

"I. . .have a few ideas. It's probably better if I don't tell you right now."

Her lips were pressed together into a thin line, which meant that she had every intention of pursuing the subject further as soon as the opportunity arose, but she simply nodded and kept her silence. Pushing the double doors open, Alex held one for her as he entered the second wing of the hospital. Even though the hallway was empty, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, and that had nothing to do with the security cameras.

* * *

"Catie!" Danielle said, pulling up short in the doorway. "Oh my gosh!"

Catie's room was cheery enough, but Catie herself looked like a wreck - not that Alex was going to _tell_ her that, of course, he was just surprised. She was sitting up a little with a book balanced in one hand and three of the thin hospital blankets piled up on her legs. Her left arm was immobilized in a cast, she had bandages on her neck and right forearm, and her skin was a sickly shade of white. Dozens of smaller cuts and bruises from ricocheting shrapnel stuck out in dark crimson lines on her arms and face. She looked like a cadaver, all except for the tired smile that she gave Danielle.

"Hey," Catie said through a yawn, her voice hoarse. "Don't worry, it's worse than it looks."

Alex raised his eyebrows at her and tried to smile. "You know, that's not exactly reassuring."

"Is there anything I can get you?" asked Danielle, gesturing towards the door she'd just walked through. "I think - er, I'm going to get some water."

Sitting up with a great amount of effort and a grimace slashed across her face, Catie winced but nodded. "Yeah - something with caffeine. Anything."

"I'll see what they have. Be right back."

"So, what happened?" Catie asked as soon as Danielle left.

"How are you feeling, Catie?" Alex countered, not sure whether she meant the explosion or the money.

"I asked first."

"Yeah, and you look like you're in an awful lot of pain for someone who should be on a morphine drip."

She grinned, somewhat bitterly. "They're weaning me off of it. Besides, it was hydrocodone. Mom's idea. She works here."

"You're in better shape than I was, at least. Actually - no, you're worse."

"Really? Cause I feel like I've been hit by a train. Repeatedly." Shifting slightly, she jerked her head towards the end. "Sit down. I feel like I'm holding an audience or something."

Cautiously avoiding her legs and knocking the bed around, Alex leaned against the edge and made another failed attempt to cross his arms. "So, how are you _doing_?"

"Oh, no. No, Alex." Catie gave him a warning look even though she was still smiling. "I am going to be _fine_. I'm too tired to have the 'You-Almost-Got-Blown-Up' conversation right now."

Suddenly, meeting her eyes was difficult because, even though he had survived the last few days, fighting the crushing guilt that was triggered in moments like this was difficult. Rationally knowing, and thoroughly understanding, that he couldn't have done anything to stop the grenade from going off didn't make him feel any better. "I shouldn't have let this happen."

"Yeah, don't start that either. What were your other options? Leaving me somewhere would have been too dangerous."

"No, I know that much." Alex shook his head, searching for the right words and hoping they would come as he started talking. "I mean, _you_ shouldn't have been the one that got blasted so badly."

Catie emphatically shook her head then winced at the pain from the sudden movement, even though she tried to disguise it by flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Here, look at my hand." she held out her right hand, the one bandaged to the elbow but not in a cast.

He carefully took her wrist. "Ligament damage?"

"Lots. But I can still move my fingers. The point is, I'm still alive, and I know I shouldn't be. I thought I was dying, and that. . ." her eyes flickered away for a second, as if she was zoning out. "That was terrifying. Not, like, when Troy showed up at my house and your brain kind of goes into survival mode and you're scared but it's the fight-or-flight type of fear. It felt more like . . . like that pain would be the last thing I ever felt because there wouldn't be anything else ever again. Or that it would be like the last time and I was going to be stuck in that semi-conscious state forever." Swallowing hard, she looked away, but her fingers tightened around his hand. "And I thought you were dying," she said to the left wall, still not looking at him. Alex couldn't blame her.

"The second time is always worse," he said after a while as her words buzzed around in his brain. "Because you know what it's like. You know how much you can suffer and how much you can lose."

"Right. I'm so glad the kids weren't there."

"Oh, me too." Alex almost laughed at the thought, the kind of laughter that comes from the sheer relief of the realization that a horrible mistake was avoided. Well, a worse mistake than almost getting your boss' daughter killed. "Your dad would've killed me. Or I would've jumped into the Potomac and saved him the trouble."

Catie gave him a wide-eyed stare and even though she was clearly exhausted her eyes were bright. "Don't you dare do that. Speaking of which, how much longer are you going to be here?"

"Six more weeks, at least." He was pleased that she had asked, but he was also beginning to feel an encroaching sense of dread as the days melted into one another with little to no progress, especially since Ben would be gone for a week.

"Any reason in particular?"

Frantically searching for another topic, Alex tried, "You know, when you're up for walking again, we should go back to that art museum."

"You're changing the subject," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

He sighed in defeat and decided to tell her straight-out that way he wouldn't have to lie again, but first he stood up and shut the door. "Troy had a gambling problem and he owes a lot of money to a casino owner in Las Vegas. Since he died, he can't repay that debt, so now I have to. Two men came by the house the other day and made that very. . . _clear_."

"Did they threaten you?"

"Does it matter?"

" _Alex._ "

"Look," he gently squeezed her hand to reassure her and maybe to distract her, because she actually seemed concerned when she should be trying to stay calm. . . which was probably shot, because he'd told her about the money. "I have a plan. Everything's going to be fine, I'll take care of it."

Someone shuffled in the doorway and Danielle returned with her arms full of bottled water and a cup of steaming coffee. "It's decaf," she said to Catie, who let go of Alex's wrist to take it.

"Decaf?"

"Yeah, sorry, it was all they had."

"Liar."

"Okay, fine." Danielle dropped down to the floor and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on her fist. "You're not supposed to have caffeine, not on that medicine. She looked like she was drowning in her jacket, which was borrowed from Gwen Daniels, and Alex couldn't help but nudge her shin with his foot, distracting her while he reached down to swipe her paper coffee cup. It was almost as tall as she was.

"Hey!" she protested, reaching out and punching him in the knee. "I paid for that! With my gig money!"

His only reply was to take a sip, but he ended up coughing at the scalding contents. Catie raised her eyebrows at him, clearly amused, but she leaned back into her pillows and pulled the blanket up without saying a word. He made a face. "A little sweet. You need less coffee, Dani. Even Wolf mentioned that."

"Shut up, Alex," she said with a sweet smile, poison dripping from every word.

Needless to say, he returned her drink.

* * *

 _ **Two Days Later**_

At three a.m. on Saturday morning, Alex was pouring over yet another set of blueprints marked with security cameras and blindspots. They were for the National Gallery of Art, where Catie had dragged him the day she'd been attacked, and where he would be going later that day with Danielle. An exhibit on loan from the York Gate collection in London was going to be installed - maybe it was already being installed - and that meant an entire new alarm system was also going to be installed, as well as a new camera cycle for the gallery. The blindspots on the blueprints would have to be updated, and translating the layout of the museum from paper to reality required his physical presence there. Casing the building would be relatively simple because the museum was perennially crowded with people who stood around gawking in different rooms, so the crowd would serve as cover.

He rubbed his eyes, feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over him, and put down his pencil. It rolled across his desk; he heard it hit the floor a few seconds later.

"Why does this always happen?" he muttered to himself. "I thought I was done. I thought I could get out."

Outside, a ferocious storm hurled sleet against the window that sounded like rocks bouncing off the glass. The roads would probably be frozen by later that morning. Too bad, because Alex was planning on spending the morning with Catie before going over to the museum. She seemed to be doing better; the color was coming back to her face, and most of the cuts on her arms had begun to fade. She'd mentioned that her scars from surgery were healing nicely too. Her siblings had dutifully brought books and her laptop to the hospital so she had something to do besides sleep. Alex had made a standing offer to bring anything else she needed.

Hers was a stark difference to his own stays in the hospital. He hadn't had many visitors, or books, laptops, anything. Just him, the medicine, the doctor. Lonely, perhaps, but MI6 didn't have the time to coddle him, and after he had tried to cut his ties to them, he hadn't cared to do much anyways. Maybe the reason Catie was doing so well, compared to him, was because she _wanted_ to get better. Power of positive thinking and all that. Just like Danielle, who seemed to refuse to ask for anything even if her leg was falling off. Ben had told him, months ago, about the night of the bombing when Alex was trapped inside the burning theatre and Danielle had stumbled out with her leg mangled by broken glass. She'd tried to walk or limp and when he finally picked her up she'd protested every step of the way. Something made Alex think that Catie would be much the same because she was used to being the one doing everything for everyone else, whereas Danielle had been - and still was, to some extent - shy, and resistant to trusting anyone beyond superficial formality.

Alex hauled himself out of his desk chair, covered up the blueprints by throwing a sweater on top of them, and checked his phone. The screen glowed blue in the darkness, making his eyes water as he opened an email from one of his supervisors at the Academy asking if he would be available to audition for a new quartet under a transfer faculty member from Rice University.

Truthfully, Alex had barely had time to think about any future career as a musician. He wasn't sure if it was something he still wanted or not, but that was something he could decide on in one, two, three years if he kept up the same work ethic and effort. Music had to be his fallback because it was his out, his excuse, his life when he finally disentangled himself from MI6. But what _next_? He didn't even know if there was anything else he _could_ do besides music. Going to university wasn't really in the equation either - what would he study, besides music? What would he, _could he_ , even do? The questions tumbled around inside his brain as he flopped onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sleet pound against the window from the winter storm.

In that instant, he heard a noise. He stood up and opened his door, leaning out into the stairwell to listen in case he imagined it.

The noise came again.

Someone was knocking - pounding, really, on the Blakemore's front door. A rustle came from down the hallway as the door to Catie's room creaked open and Danielle emerged, looking exhausted. "Alex? What's that?"

"Let's go find out," he said, slowly descending the stairs. The pounding grew louder, more frantic, and he began to feel concerned.

Danielle pressed her fist to her mouth to muffle a yawn, hunching her shoulders in. "Who's at the door?"

Seeing that she was nervous, tired, and wracked with sleep deprivation, Alex grabbed the doorknob before she could and opened it just enough to see who was standing on the porch at this hour.

Ben Daniels stood there in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, soaking wet. His hair was plastered to his head, but the look on his face was what scared Alex. The wind howled in the pitch-black night. Sleet and ice made the porch seem like it was shining. As soon as Alex opened the door a wave of cold air rushed into the house.

"Ben?" he asked, shoving the door farther open. He moved out of the way so that Ben could come in. Alex felt Danielle's fingers dig into his skin as she grabbed his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" she gasped. "What's wrong? Is it Gwen? The baby?"

"No, they're fine." Ben said, sounding haggard. "Alex. I have a name on the casino guy. It's Niccolo Falcone. _That's_ who Troy owed the money to."

"Never heard of him."

"Wait," said Danielle. "Wasn't he in the news?"

"For suspicion of the murder of a rival casino owner, yeah," Ben replied. "That's not important. Alex, when I looked him up in the Bank's database, all sorts of firewalls came up. Whatever's going on with him is highly, _highly_ classified, and I need to talk to Blakemore to see what the FBI has. You don't want to mess around with this."

Alex flung his hands up. "I don't have a choice Those two men threatened Danielle, and they know about Catie and her family. My hands are tied."

"No," Ben said. His voice was grim. " _They_ tied your hands. You always have a choice, Alex, and trust me - I'm not that much older than you, but I swear to _God_ that if you get involved with this you won't get out." He shouldered past Alex and walked into the living room, kicking his wet shoes off on the carpet.

"What's _really_ wrong about Niccolo Falcone, Ben?" Alex demanded as he pivoted around to face him. "You didn't make the trip here at three in the bloody morning to tell me _this_."

A few moments ticked by in silence heavier than a lead blanket before Ben wiped the water off his face, turned back to Alex, and said, "Falcone's into stolen art. Remember the theft of that necklace from an estate in Georgetown?"

"I heard about it on the news."

"And I think Falcone's going to hear about _you_ , because the Bank's answer to the questions about your presence in Washington is to produce surveillance footage from that incident."

"And?"

"You're being framed, Alex."

* * *

 _ **Review Replies** _

**Andipxndy** \- Thank you so much! Yep, Alex has done it again. . . or at least, his circumstances definitely have. Poor guy just can't catch a break :P neither can Danielle, but she'll hang in there :)


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